Is it Advised to Have 2 M.2 NVMe's from same company?

bikemanI7 · Jul 26, 2024

Hello All

Planning on adding second M.2 NVMe eventually to my new AMD Ryzen 7 7700X Desktop, currently the main boot drive is Kingston PCie Gen 4 (unknown if its x4, or x2, as can't find too much specs on it thus far lol)

My old system has Samsung 970 Evo Plus Gen 3 installed on it's motherboard, was thinking of getting a 2nd Gen 4, to be the new 2TB Game NVMe, as Sata 1TB is kinda getting full.

Should i get another Kingston 2TB NVMe so the boot and Game Drive are from same maker?

or should i purchase Samsung 2TB NVMe, and eventually replace Kingston 1TB NVMe boot drive with Samsung 500GB or 1TB PCi Gen4 boot drive?

**Noob with hardware still unforuately, trying to learn though**

hsehestedt · Jul 26, 2024

Get whatever you prefer. My primary desktop system has 3 NVMe drives, all from different manufacturers. That same machine has several 2.5" SSDs, also all different models.

idgat · Jul 26, 2024

Grab whatever you want, whenever it's on special

bikemanI7 · Jul 26, 2024

Oh ok, well first time i ever had ability to have 2 NVMe drives in a system. so finding out just in case

Will definitely grab what can afford for sure

snerd · Jul 26, 2024

Parts is parts! Mix 'n match is fine.

bikemanI7 · Jul 26, 2024

Well definitely feels better knowing that its perfectly fine to keep boot like it is and get whatever 2nd NVMe that i can afford sometime in early August, then new one becomes game drive lol, and i should be all set. aiming for a 2TB, don't think i'd need anything larger lol.

Ghot · Jul 26, 2024

Whatever you get, try to grab a TLC or even better, an SLC drive.
Avoid the QLC drives.

TLC is probably the best bang for the buck. And no, for SSDs, TLC does not stand for Tender Loving Care.

Multi-Layer SSDs: What Are SLC, MLC, TLC, QLC, and PLC?

On the market for a solid-state drive but confused by all the abbreviations? We'll help you sort out what things like SLC and TLC mean, and which one is right for you.

www.howtogeek.com

BamaInArk · Jul 26, 2024

My advice is to keep them the same so running their brand utility makes it easier if using the same brand drives. As in running Samsung Magician to check/update drive firmware, etc.

bobkn · Jul 26, 2024

Different brands is OK. I'm doing that now.

Possible exception: when a special driver is required. (Like some of the older Samsung drives.) I'm unsure whether there'd be any issue with that.

abactuon · Jul 26, 2024

Which drive can be viewed with the program HWINFO64.

The first Kingston NV2 models were Phison +Toshiba TLC , now they are made by Silicon Motion+Intel QLC, so it's best not to buy them.

bikemanI7 · Jul 26, 2024

Well whole system is crashing for some reason now at Random, don't know if its the Kingston NVMe, or what it is now---did turn on PBO Curve optimzier in bios eariler/Curve Optimizer to All Cores, Negative, 30, ((should i turn that off later, and pray it doesn't over heat while doing my normal tasks)

I just want the crashing to stop--almost to the point of tears

there isn't any mini dumps or full memory dumps to analyze i checked

guess over night tonight will run a memory test with memtest86

guess i should've after all replaced gaming Laptop with an intel/Nvidia build after all, and kept my Intel 10700 inservice longer---this will cost so much to ship back to Ibuypower for them to diagnose it, this case is so heavy, i can barely even lift it myself, then again my older I7 10700 case wasn't much lighter

Should i set Bios back to Defaults, and just turn on Expo Profile 1, and Resizeable bar, and Above 4G Decoding only, and make sure Smart Fan mode is activated for the CPU Cooler and Exhaust fan?

((Wipes tears from my eyes while typing this, 44 year old man, and doesn't know jack on hardware that much, software i know a little bit))

I know my family member that controls my money, will yell at me if i was to put this one out of service in my closet, and swap back to using the Older Intel 10700, so gonna do my best to find out the cause of the issue and be happy once again

Ghot · Jul 26, 2024

@bikemanI7

BIOS tips:

1. Do tons of research BEFORE messing around in the BIOS.
2. Unless you're in some kind of overclocking competition, don't play around too much with the BIOS settings.
3. The main things in the BIOS that you may HAVE to play around with are as follows...
3a. Enable EXPO, or XMP or DOCP, so the RAM runs at the correct speed.
3b. Make sure your drive is booting properly.
3c. Set the CPU cooler fan curves.
3d. Get the security items like... TPM, Secure Boot, etc., set properly.
3e. If necessary you may have to play around with CPU Virtualization for certain Windows settings.
3f. Personally, I usually disable the Boot LOGO Display (on the Boot tab). When disabled, you'll see a short hardware list at boot, instead of the motherboard logo.

With the Boot LOGO disabled, you'll see the BIOS splash screen at boot, instead.
Mine looks like this, for example...

That's about it. And yes... resetting the BIOS to optimized defaults usually helps in cases that cause... tears.

bobkn · Jul 26, 2024

Chin up.

It's unlikely that the NVME is causing crashes.

I'm not sure what to suggest. Maybe getting HWINFO to monitor temperatures, and CPU-Z to stress the CPU.

If the system is question is your "System One", it's much too nice to be stuck in a closet. You'd be likelier to suffer buyer's remorse if you had a system based on an Intel Gen13 or Gen14 CPU, from what I've been reading lately. (My secondary PC has an I9-13900K, but I haven't loaded it heavily very often.)

bikemanI7 · Jul 26, 2024

Well set to Load bios defaults, resetup the ram settings, Checked the fan settings---Not sure if Smart Fan mode suppose to be on or not lol for CPU Fan and Rear Exhaust, (not an expert at fan curves lol)

Expo did re enable and its running at 5600 like it was originally

Now i just cross my fingers and toes, and hope to god it's stable again

then i'll be much much happier

(Think i'm just upset since it's been crashing all day and all evening long off and on)) but maybe fixing the bios settings back to defaults, and such possibly fixed it will run later Memtest86 over night, and such.

The crashing was originally just with HWInfo64, not sure why on that though, now its spread to other programs. there is no infection, i did 2 scans with Defender, and Malwarebytes

Been working on this since 8am today

Ghot · Jul 27, 2024

bikemanI7 said:
Not sure if Smart Fan mode suppose to be on or not lol for CPU Fan and Rear Exhaust

I dunno know what they call it on an MSI motherboard, but generally all fan curves are pretty much the same.

A fan curve, tells the fan(s) how fast to spin, depending on the temperature.
Different companies word things differently in the BIOS, but if you make a sandwich and something to drink, and stare at those fan settings long enough, they'll begin to make sense.

Most BIOSes have a way to "save" a profile of your BIOS settings.
They usually have 6 or 8 slots to save profiles in.

So... if things are working... save the current BIOS settings to a profile.
Then you can play around with the fan settings. If you get them messed up... just "load" the BIOS profile you saved earlier, and try again.

Generally, I run my case fans at 100%. For the CPU fans, I aim for a balance between cooling and noise.

This may help somewhat...
My vid card has two fans. These are my fans curves for the two fans.
Now the motherboard fan settings will be worded in such a way as to make them almost un-understandable.

But... in general, this is what you will be attempting to achieve with the BIOS fan settings.
It's just fan speeds for various temperatures.

People that design vid cards are somewhat sane.
People that design motherboards (and the BIOS settings), have broken brains.

If trying to figure out the fan settings in the BIOS causes more tears... you can just set all the fans to 100%, and get one of these.... Fan Controller

Or... "Impress your friends" Fan Controller

bikemanI7 · Jul 27, 2024

Yeah well i'll get it figured out sometime here....i'll admit i know intel/Nvidia side of hardware a little more than AMD/Radeon side lol, guess gonna learn for sure now with all this crashing lol.

Praying after fixing the bios settings crashings done, and just might have to adjust just the fan settings a little more--which shouldn't be too hard i don't think

Well i definitely can't run HWInfo64, crashed soon as i opened that like it was originally doing lol

Did notice Monitor goes black when happens, and orange light comes on, on the motherboard, then it goes white, and auto restarts into Windows

Anyhow i'll probably sleep in an hour or so, may still run memory test over night
(Should i leave Expo on when i run that test or turn that off, then run it?)

Will run Dism Restore health command in a bit before goto sleep, and Sfc /scannow til it shows clean

Then start memory test i think, and try to sleep, if still going in morning--then might use PC 2 for a little stress gaming stress relief

Then once crashing issue fully solved, then will take a PC break and watch a Movie i think

((funny thing is on my old Intel system i never had crashes like this ever))---just the Intel 10700 tended to run hot and i couldn't boost to rated 4.8ghz boost speed, why i decided well i'll replace this one with this new Ibuypower Ready Build--this time all AMD

If rest of system is stable, i can live with not opening that program lol, just have to see

bobkn · Jul 27, 2024

Downloadable manual: https://download.msi.com/archive/mnu_exe/mb/PROB650-VCWIFI.pdf

P. 45 shows the diagnostic LEDs. But during a normal boot, they should illuminate in turn. If the yellow LED isn't stuck on, it may not be a RAM issue.

I've never had HWINFO fail to run. Intel and AMD systems.

Have you run the Windows system file checker (sfc /scannow in a command line window with admin privileges)?

bikemanI7 · Jul 27, 2024

Update: system file checker no integrity violations found, memtest86 full run no errors, Amd chipset drivers updated at 7am eastern time.

System did do 2 rounds of battlefield 2042 last night with no more crashes

Can't say if fully fixed or not yet though, but if is then early August getting my game NVMe as planned

I so hope the crashing is behind me though, only thing left I think is crystal disk info to check current drives and maybe chkdsk

bikemanI7 · Jul 27, 2024

Thank you everyone for the helpful info last night, i know the topic went way off topic later in the evening last night due to all the crashing i was experiencing

According to AMD Help Reddit, it was my own fault why the crashing was happening in Secondlife, doing basic tasks, and such, HWinfo64 i'll diagnose that crash later on more when i do a clean install once i get my 2nd NVMe and Windows 11 Pro like my old system had all setup, then i'll diagnose HWinfo64 crashing more

I set the Curve Optimizer too high
Negative
30

i was too aggressive in trying to control my Temps and Voltage--yup i'm very new to the AMD platform

thats what i get for following Youtube Tutortials to optimze AMD Ryzen 7 7700X processor lol

I appreciate each and everyone here though, as everyone is always helpful even when the topic goes severely off topic---Tonight much more stable performance thus far