PSA, Possible incompatibility between pcie to m.2 adapters and nvme ssds

Hardware Hub Storage
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so I’m just gonna drop this in here so no one has to go through what I had to go through diagnosing something I never thought could even be an issue.

so I tried to use this pcie to m.2 adapter from “ORICO”:
ORICO-PSM2
with these samsung m.2 nvme ssds:
970 evo plus 1tb

the symptoms where:
samsung drives not showing up in bios, samsung devices showing in bios but some other pcie devices wouldn’t show up any more and even in this state I couldn’t install an os on the drive I have tested both linux (proxmox and ubuntu) and windows (server 2019 and win10 ltsc), with linux on loading the installer a kernel panic happened and system reboots, with windows installer would load but I was not able to get it to install, even trying to load one those winpe utility images would cause a crash (I have tested “Hikari pe”).
I have tested this combination on these platforms:

  • HP DL380 G9 SFF
  • Asus pro-ws-wrx80e-sage-se-wifi-ii running a 5995WX
  • AMD b550 (5900x on a gigabyte vision D board I have tested all pcie ports on the board)
  • some old asrock mb (don’t remember the board had a g1620 cpu I think)
    the behavior was almost the same on all platforms however I was able to get the furthest on hp server but ultimately nothing worked.

on b550 board with a different m.2 ssd (Plextor 1TB M8Pe) the problem was gone.
So the issue was combination of this specific ssd (1tb 970 evo plus) and this adapter (orico psm2), which I still can’t get my head around.
I could literally SEE the card was nothing but a few traces capacitors and a connector (this adapter does not even has a voltage regulator).
I bought some other m.2 adapter and all the issues was solved (which was basically the same; some traces+few caps+a connector).

also do note I have tested THREE different ORICO-PSM2s and THREE different samsung 970 evo plus 1tb ssds.

3 Likes
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I think I may have a generic card based on that ORICO card as everything like the chips/layout on the PCIe card matches it, had issues using an EVO 970(non Plus), generic 240GB SSD and 250GB Hikvision. Not used as a boot device but as a 2nd storage device, the I/O typically reached 1,000 MB/s then rapidly dropped so it could be a SSD controller not liking the card.

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I guess this is kind of in the same vein of how some displayport or HDMI cables can introduce compatibility problems between the display and the graphics board.
Good to know even hard fiberglass cablecards can have timing/signal integrity issues.