I'm having trouble with my setup which includes an unknown brand motherboard (Enigma H510), an Intel i3-10100 CPU, and an NVMe SSD (PCIe Gen 3.4). The problem is that my new NVMe drive isn't being detected at all in the BIOS. I tested the drive in a laptop, and it worked perfectly fine, so I know it's not the drive itself. I've tried reseating the drive multiple times, checking all the BIOS settings, and even clearing the CMOS, but nothing seems to work. I've heard that some H510 motherboards might disable the M.2 slot when using the i3-10100. Is this actually true? Can anyone with an i3-10100 share their experience? Am I left with no choice but to use a PCIe adapter?
3 Answers
You might want to check the motherboard manual if you haven't yet; I read that one of the M.2 slots only works with 11th-gen CPUs. That could be why it’s not showing up for you!
Yes, it’s true. The H510 boards indeed have issues with the M.2 slot when paired with 10th-gen CPUs like the i3-10100. These boards connect the M.2 slot to a PCIe controller that's only active with 11th-gen CPUs. So, unless you upgrade your CPU, the M.2 slot is pretty much a no-go for you.
So I'm basically stuck without using the M.2? Should I just toss it or the whole setup?
It sounds like the M.2 slot might be sharing bandwidth with one of your SATA ports. If you have any other drives plugged in via SATA, try swapping them around or even unplugging them to see if the NVMe drive gets detected afterwards.
I removed all SATA drives, and it still didn't show up.
They only list one M.2 slot, as far as I can see.