I recently installed Windows 11 on a new Silicon Power A80 2TB PCIe Gen 3 NVMe SSD. Soon afterward, the system began producing "Critical Process Died" blue screens, and the drive eventually stopped appearing reliably in BIOS.
My system includes an ASRock B450M Pro4 motherboard, Ryzen 5 5600, 32GB of RAM using four 8GB sticks, the A80 installed in the upper M2_1 slot, a 240GB Kingston SATA SSD with another Windows installation, and a 2TB Seagate hard drive.
I've reseated the NVMe, cleaned and checked the connection, cleared CMOS, tested with only the A80 installed, disconnected the other drives and Windows installation USB, forced the M.2 slot to PCIe Gen 3, checked boot settings, and tried DiskPart's rescan command.
The behavior is inconsistent. With the A80 installed, the computer may sit at the ASRock logo for a long time before entering BIOS. With both the Kingston and A80 connected, it sometimes goes directly into Windows Recovery and reports that the system could not be repaired. If I remove the A80 and leave only the Kingston connected, Windows boots normally every time.
The A80 seems to affect the system even when it does not appear consistently in BIOS or DiskPart. I'd like to wipe it and start over, but I can't erase a drive that keeps disappearing. Does this sound like a defective SSD, or are there other tests I should perform before requesting an RMA?
2 Answers
Test the M.2 slot with another known-good NVMe drive first. If another drive works normally, the A80 is the likely problem. You could also test the A80 using a PCIe-to-NVMe adapter or an external NVMe enclosure, which would help separate a failed drive from a motherboard slot or compatibility issue.
Try removing the NVMe, gently cleaning the contacts with a lint-free cloth, and reinstalling it firmly so it is fully inserted and secured flat with the motherboard screw. A poor connection can cause detection problems, although repeated disappearance after a clean reseat would make a hardware fault more likely.
I tried reseating and cleaning it early on because I suspected a connection issue, but it still failed to appear. It seems like the drive stopped working after Windows was installed.
I’m mainly confused because connecting the A80 alongside the Kingston sometimes sends the computer into Windows Recovery. Does that mean the motherboard is detecting the drive even when it isn’t listing it clearly in BIOS?