Kingston A2000 SSD is not detected by Acer E5-575G-77FW

Earthling

Hi! I finally decided to add an SSD and I purchased a 500GB Kingston A2000 SSD. This is NVMe SSD but my laptop should be compatible since PCI Express V is 3.0 and the Maximum Link Width is 2X.

After installing the SSD into the slot, I go to the bios and there is 'None' in HDD1, neither I can find it anywhere in the system. What could be the problem?

The drivers of the Intel Skylake-U/Y PCH - PCI Express Root Port #9 [A1/C1] are 10.1.1.38 (Oct 3rd, 2016), maybe they are too old and an update could make it detectable? I could not find if there are more recent drivers for this.

Any help/suggestion is welcome.

Thank you!

JackE

Congrats. Good luck with it. It's still a faster than mechanical drives. NVMEs are still touchy bleeding edge technologies relative to SATA3s. Many folks have had better luck with Samsung evos but the prices are usually higher than the budget brands.     Jack E/NJ

JackE

>>>After installing the SSD into the slot, I go to the bios and there is 'None' in HDD1,>>>

If the BIOS Information tab doesn't detect the drive, it's either not properly connected, not getting power, or defective. The Windows drivers don't matter if the BIOS doesn't detect the drive. I suggest that you re-seat the SSD in it's slot to make sure it and the screw holding it down to the mainboard are secure. Jack E/NJ

Earthling

JackE said:

>>>After installing the SSD into the slot, I go to the bios and there is 'None' in HDD1,>>>

If the BIOS Information tab doesn't detect the drive, it's either not properly connected, not getting power, or defective. The Windows drivers don't matter if the BIOS doesn't detect the drive. I suggest that you re-seat the SSD in it's slot to make sure it and the screw holding it down to the mainboard are secure. Jack E/NJ

Hi JackE, thank you for the suggestion. However I did that several times without success.

The SSD seems well connected, see following pics.

JackE

Remove the SSD again. Then gently rub its gold-plated contacts with a soft cloth. Then try to detect it again in the BIOS Information tab. Also what SATA mode is showing? It should be  AHCI mode. RST with optane or RAID may cause problems.  Jack E/NJ

Earthling

JackE said:

Remove the SSD again. Then gently rub its gold-plated contacts with a soft cloth. Then try to detect it again in the BIOS Information tab. Also what SATA mode is showing? It should be  AHCI mode. RST with optane or RAID may cause problems.  Jack E/NJ

Hi, I have just done that, but still no detection whatsoever.

Yes, it is showing AHCI mode. Find attached the picture of the Information tab in BIOS.
I contacted Kingston and they just said that they do not support the 575 series..however I saw in some comments in Amazon a guy with the E5-575G and the i5, instead of i7, who is using this same SSD without problems.

Any other idea is welcome before I try to tell it out...
Thanks!

JackE

>>>I contacted Kingston and they just said that they do not support the 575 series.>>>

How did you contact Kingston? By phone? Email? Chatline? Website? Jack E/NJ

Earthling

JackE said:

>>>I contacted Kingston and they just said that they do not support the 575 series.>>>

How did you contact Kingston? By phone? Email? Chatline? Website? Jack E/NJ

Via website:

While it is possible that NVMe SSDs will work in a system supported only for M.2 SATA SSDs, this is not guaranteed.

According to our online configurator, we do not support any of our M.2 NVMe SSDS with this model series:

https://www.kingston.com/unitedkingdom/en/memory/search?model=94962&devicetype=3&mfr=ACE&line=Aspire

In rare cases, NVMe SSDs can be installed, but used only as secondary drives, not to boot from.

However in most, like this one, you cannot use NVMe SSDs at all because the BIOS will not recognise it.

JackE

>>>should be compatible since PCI Express V is 3.0 and the Maximum Link Width is 2X.>>>

Please post hwinfo64 screenshot.  Jack E/NJ

Earthling

JackE said:

>>>should be compatible since PCI Express V is 3.0 and the Maximum Link Width is 2X.>>>

Please post hwinfo64 screenshot.  Jack E/NJ

Here you go:



Thanks!

JackE

>>>The drivers of the Intel Skylake-U/Y PCH - PCI Express Root Port #9 [A1/C1] are 10.1.1.38 (Oct 3rd, 2016), maybe they are too old and an update could make it detectable? I could not find if there are more recent drivers for this.>>>

That doesn't look like an ACER driver. Go to this link and try the AHCI mode driver and maybe replace that chipset driver.  https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/support-product/6737?b=1  Jack E/NJ

Earthling

JackE said:

>>>The drivers of the Intel Skylake-U/Y PCH - PCI Express Root Port #9 [A1/C1] are 10.1.1.38 (Oct 3rd, 2016), maybe they are too old and an update could make it detectable? I could not find if there are more recent drivers for this.>>>

That doesn't look like an ACER driver. Go to this link and try the AHCI mode driver and maybe replace that chipset driver.  https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/support-product/6737?b=1  Jack E/NJ

It's an Intel driver, just like those of the link too.
In that link the AHCI drivers are not up to date, I just updated it through the device manager to version 17.0.0.1072 but that does not bring the PCI Express drivers to an update, as you can see in the Drivers Information section, there are still the 10.1.1.38.

I also downloaded the Chipset Driver I found in the link, with version

2017/07/31

Version:

10.1.1.44

Vendor:

Intel

but after the successful installation it does not seem to have an effect in the installed version appearing in HWiNFO neither. When trying to update through the Device Manager, it states that the most recent driver version is already installed.

Still, the SSD is not detected.

JackE

>>>It's an Intel driver, just like those of the link too. >>>

Yes but I can't tell if it's an ACER-specific Intel driver or an  Intel-generic Intel driver. You want the ACER-specific version, irrespective of its relative date, because ACER and Intel versions are NOT the same. Jack E/NJ

Earthling

JackE said:

>>>It's an Intel driver, just like those of the link too. >>>

Yes but I can't tell if it's an ACER-specific Intel driver or an  Intel-generic Intel driver. You want the ACER-specific version, irrespective of its relative date, because ACER and Intel versions are NOT the same. Jack E/NJ

Before updating through the device manager, I also installed those of the link, which I imagine are acer-specific (2017/05/24 Version: 15.2.0.1020 ), and did not help in getting the PCI Express drivers updated either.

JackE

OK.  While NVMEs are notoriously finicky, they should still be seen in the BIOS Information tab even if the OS doesn't. Which suggests a hardware issue. Either the card itself or PCIe bus. If it was mine,  I'd buy a cheap SATA3 card for about €20 to test the bus. Then decide the next step. https://www.amazon.fr/YUCUN-Disque-Interne-Lecture-Ecriture/dp/B078S4C7KR/ref=sr_1_11?__mk_fr_FR=ÅMÅŽÕÑ&dchild=1&keywords=m.2+sata+3+2280&qid=1600897099&refinements=p_76:437879031&rnid=437877031&rps=1&s=computers&sr=1-11

Jack E/NJ

Earthling

JackE said:

OK.  While NVMEs are notoriously finicky, they should still be seen in the BIOS Information tab even if the OS doesn't. Which suggests a hardware issue. Either the card itself or PCIe bus. If it was mine,  I'd buy a cheap SATA3 card for about €20 to test the bus. Then decide the next step. https://www.amazon.fr/YUCUN-Disque-Interne-Lecture-Ecriture/dp/B078S4C7KR/ref=sr_1_11?__mk_fr_FR=ÅMÅŽÕÑ&dchild=1&keywords=m.2+sata+3+2280&qid=1600897099&refinements=p_76:437879031&rnid=437877031&rps=1&s=computers&sr=1-11

Jack E/NJ

OK, thank you JackE. I will do that and eventually will comment back here with the results.

Earthling

So, after buying a new SSD without NVMe, it is detected. So I guess Kingston NMVe SSDs and my laptop are not compatible after all.

I started the procedure to clone and bootup windows from the new SSD. However I cannot boot it up, unless I push F12 at every start-up and choose the SSD disk in the Boot manager. I changed the boot up priority 1 through the BIOS to the SSD but, if I let it go without choosing by the F12 method, it shows a blue screen saying that my laptop needs repair.

My partitions are as follows at the moment, is it because of the EFI partition of Disk 0? I can't delete it or merge it.



Thank you.

JackE

Yes, you have two boot disks with HDD0 as the primary boot drive. Temporarily disconnect HDD0 to make sure HDD1 boots up OK by itself without pressing F12. Then we'll go from there. Jack E/NJ

Earthling

JackE said:

Yes, you have two boot disks with HDD0 as the primary boot drive. Temporarily disconnect HDD0 to make sure HDD1 boots up OK by itself without pressing F12. Then we'll go from there. Jack E/NJ

After removing the HDD0, windows boots up correctly from the SSD, without the F12 workaround. When putting it back, the previous behavior is restaured though.

JackE

OK good. I suggest that you try to assign a letter H : to the EFI partition on Disk0 when booted from Disk1. Then go to FileExplore  and copy its contents to a thumb drive for safe keeping in case you ever want to try to boot from it again. Then re-format H : to FAT32 to wipe it clean. Don't try to merge it, move it or erase it or you could mess up G : . It's only a very tiny fraction of the 1TB drive anyway. Jack E/NJ

Earthling

JackE said:

OK good. I suggest that you try to assign a letter H : to the EFI partition on Disk0 when booted from Disk1. Then go to FileExplore  and copy its contents to a thumb drive for safe keeping in case you ever want to try to boot from it again. Then re-format H : to FAT32 to wipe it clean. Don't try to merge it, move it or erase it or you could mess up G : . It's only a very tiny fraction of the 1TB drive anyway. Jack E/NJ

I have had to do it through CMD with Diskpart but now it boots up from the SSD directly.

The SSD is another Kingston without NVMe, model SA400MA/120GB. As follows the performance:

It's just a pity that I could not get to work the fastest with NMVe.

Thanks for the help!

JackE

Congrats. Good luck with it. It's still a faster than mechanical drives. NVMEs are still touchy bleeding edge technologies relative to SATA3s. Many folks have had better luck with Samsung evos but the prices are usually higher than the budget brands.     Jack E/NJ