ACER Aspire 5 515-58GM compatibility issue with 2 TB Samsung 990 EVO PLUS

Hello, I recently purchased ACER Aspire 5 515-58GM laptop which comes with 2 M.2 PCIe slots (and also 2 SODIMM modules that can be upgraded, as I've seen wrong answers here relating to RAM upgradability). One slot is occupied by WD 512 GB PCIe x4 drive.

Along with the laptop I ordered 2 TB Samsung 990 EVO Plus M.2 NVMe PCIe x4 Gen 4/5 drive, and now it seems that it is not recognized by the laptop. It reports the following error when I open Device Manager > Intel PCI controller (has a yellow exclamation mark):

Intel PCU Express Root Port #5 - 51BC

This device cannot start (Code 10).

An ACPI Power Object failed to transition state.

It runs latest Windows 11 Pro, I tried upgrading BIOS (v 1.64 latest), Intel drivers, Windows 11 latest updates, but nothing helps.

I even tried swapping the slots (factory 512 GB WD PCIe x4 drive does not work in second slot either! Windows Recovery boots instead of normal boot - why!?). This makes me wonder is this second slot functional? Or something else is the issue (e.g. Gen3 interface?).

I even tried running Windows 10 Pro, installed all the drivers, and guess what — exact same issue occurs! This tells me that this is not Windows fault (at least).

I am really confused as why is this happening. If the secondary M.2 slot only support PCIe Gen3, that could explain it, but I doubt because it runs i7-13620H CPU, which supports PCIe Gen 3 and 5 (direct), but it could be that the secondary slot is provided by the chipset, and it would be Gen3.

Not sure what to do now, should I return the drive? Replace it with 1 TB Gen4 model, or Gen3? I really need extra storage.

Thanks in advance!

ACER Aspire 5 515-58GM - Samsung 990 EVO PLUS.png

ACER Aspire 5 515-58GM - Samsung 990 EVO PLUS Intel PCIe Driver Issue_e.png

ACER A515-58GM DDR4 RAM Modules SODIMM.jpg

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D7X

Well, I took out (from another computer) smaller and older drive 250 GB Kingston A2000 PCI Gen3 and placed it in the 2nd slot, and the problem still occurs! The second drive is not visible! Well, the only remaining thing right now is to try to partition the new 2 TB drive in place of WD and see if I can at least get a one drive working (the bigger one). A bit disappointed at the moment, considering to return the laptop :(

Puraw

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/724704/acer-aspire-5-515-58gm-compatibility-issue-with-2-tb-samsung-990-evo-plus

Hi, there are 2 removable RAM slots and you can upgrade RAM up 2 x 16GB DDR4 3200MTs,

There are 2 x M.2 PCIe slots for Gen 4 x4 NVMe SSDs but Acer recommends up to 1TB maximum.

D7X

Hi, Puraw! Thank you for trying to help, please check my self-reply above, I tried smaller Kingston 250 GB Gen3 drive — problem still occurs unfortunately :(

D7X

I placed the Samsung EVO PLUS in the slot of factory WD drive (WD is not used now) and it works! The drive is visible (using Windows from USB drive). This tells me that either secondary slot is malfunctioning, or not supported at all (but it wouldn't be logical to place a slot in the first place by Acer just for the ornament). I guess I will have to either accept that only one slot is working, or to consider returning it.

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/724704/acer-aspire-5-515-58gm-compatibility-issue-with-2-tb-samsung-990-evo-plus

I suggest that you put the oem working boot M.2 drive into the initial M.2 boot slot that Acer had fitted the drive into and then do a clone onto the new 2TB Samsung 990 EVO Plus M.2 SSD, then take the old boot drive out and insert the new cloned 990 EVO Plus drive and use it as the boot drive and see if the laptop boots, as it should boot 100%.

if you want to do this another way, as your Aspire A515-58GM laptops has 2x Gen 4 x4 lane type slots and the Samsung 990 EVO Plus gen 4 x4 M.2 SSD drive should be recognized 100% when you install this drive into any slot, . look into the windows OS Disk Management and see if the Samsung 990 EVO Plus drive is shown there, as if it is, then you need to initialize this drive and give it a drive letter before it is recognized in windows.

If all the above doesn't work, and the new Samsung drive is not recognized and you are having these problems with your new Aspire 5 515-58GM laptop, then send this laptop back to Acer tech support in your country and demand a new mainboard to be fitted as the M.2 SSD slots are faulty and Acer will replace the board. As any Gen 4 x4 lane drive should be recognized especially a drive like the Samsung EVO Plus, which is a high end M. SSD.

Btw, the correct Acer ram fitted to this laptop is the DDR4-3200MT/s CL22 type ram, a none XMP overclocked type ram, as the 13th Gen cpu of this laptop also can operate on the DDR5 5200 MT/s which your A515-58GM does not operate with. Good luck and hope this helps you out further.

These are the appropriate mainboards for the13th Gen i3/i5 and i7 cpu's mainboards for your A515-58GM laptop.

If this answers your question and solved your query please "Click on Yes" or "Click on Like" if you find my answer useful👍

D7X

Dear Puraw, thank you for your detailed help!

Sorry I forgot to mention in my lengthy first post that I actually already tried to initialize the disk using diskmgmt, however the drive is not visible at all! I have booted into "live" Windows 11 repair mode from USB drive, and many other things, it just does not initialize Intel controller and the drive fails to function. Also tried with older lower end Kingston drive with much smaller capacity (which is already formatted and holds Windows installation of another computer), same issue - not visible drive at all. More over, WD (factory built-in disk inside the ACER 515 model) does not function at all when I put it into the secondary M.2 slot.

So, to conclude, it seems that the slot is definitely faulty, and will think about what to do now. Repair is likely an option, or to return it and look for something else.

D7X

*StevenGen sorry

D7X

[SOLVED !]

I solved it! Well, I feel kind of stupid, but such is life.

I came from AMD CPU background and haven't experienced "recent" Intel VMD tech. So, when I installed Windows initially, I bumped into an issue that Windows couldn't see drive partitions. Thus, quickly googling for the solution led to disabling BIOS > Main > CTRL+S > Intel VMD [disabled]. Later installed Windows went fine, only to later come to this disaster.

Now I understand why that feature is hidden in the first place in BIOS - there's a good reason! It puts controller into compatibility mode, and if you have only single slot/drive it will work fine without you ever knowing. However, in my case it didn't take long.

I was trying to recall all the steps and remembered this little issue, and now decided to perform a clean reinstall with the answer I found here in the community topics. Installing IRST drivers and Windows fixed the problem! The secondary drive is visible and accessible!

Intel VMD stands for direct CPU-SSD communication, so it makes sense :)

For those with the similar situation reading this and wondering - why I simply didn't go back and enabled that feature in BIOS? Well, I did, but it caused BSOD and Repair mode couldn't do anything :(