On the topic of odd failure modes involving Crucial SSDs and MSI motherboards (though one that seems to actually be the drives fault) I have a t705 which at some point started only coming up as x2 lanes instead of x4 no matter which board I put it into (with no visible damage or indication as to why, though I did try to wipe down the contact side with some rubbing alcohol anyways).
The particularly interesting part is I have a new x870 motherboard which supports m.2 slot 2 as being 0x, 2x, or 4x CPU direct lanes depending if you want 4x, 2x, or 0x to go to the USB 4 ports respectively. At first it sounds like a good combo - put the drive which wants to run at x2 only in the extra slot where x2 only mode is a reasonable tradeoff and still get great bandwidth because those lanes are pcie 5 and not through the chipset. For whatever reason though that drive only ever comes up in an x4 slot (at x2 speed) but not any x2 slots I've tried. I don't know enough about PCIe to assume why that is for sure but it seemed odd to me it was any way but "something is wrong with the 3rd or 4th lane and setting the slot to x2 lets the first 2 work at x2 the same as when the slot is set to x4 and it only comes up as x2".
>16.Link Width Negotiation in the Presence of Bad Lanes
>In an effort to maximize the link width when one or more lanes of a multi-lane link are not functioning correctly (i.e., reliable communication of training sets across the lane is not possible), PES64H16G2 down-stream switch ports automatically attempt a lane reversed configuration when doing so has the potential to enhance the achievable link width.For example, if lane 1 of a x4 link is not operating correctly, the device's downstream switch port attached to the link attempts a lane reversed configuration to form a x2 link using lanes 2 and 3 (Figure 7.4(d)). If the link partner accepts the lane reversed configuration, the optimal x2 link will be formed using lanes2 and 3. If the link partner does not accept the lane reversed configuration, but instead requests a lane configuration supported by the PES64H16G2 (e.g., x1 link using lane 0), the device accepts the configuration and forms the reduced width link. Otherwise, if the lane numbering agreement fails, the device automatically re-trains the link from the Detect state. During this re-training, the PES64H16G2 port does not re-attempt a lane reversed configuration, but rather tries to form the link without reversing the lanes. As a result, a x1 link is formed using lane 0 (Figure 7.4 (e)).
My guess is it's likely a bad BGA solder ball on Lane1, or possibly ESD damage if you took the SSD out and molested it or rubbed it on a cat right before it broke. Does it indicate it's using reversed lanes?
Nice digging, that lines up perfectly with the observed behavior! I'll have to poke around and see if anything indicates that's the operational mode to be sure.
The failure mode was that one day I just noticed it was copying sequential data from another drive slower than it normally did. Don't recall it ever having been touched after install (it is the heatsinkless variant of the T705 4TB mounted on the motherboard m.2 hearsink for that slot). Temps always reported quite reasonable, even when under stress bench load (which was rare, the drive was just a secondary drive for loading games). Since then it's been popped between about 10 boards in confusion though haha. No cat yet!
I just got a Crucial T700 last month which is a PCIE Gen5 x4 NVMe M.2 drive.
I put it in an ASUS PRIME Z890M-PLUS motherboard with an Intel Core Ultra 7 265K
Started to install Fedora Linux version 41. The drive would just completely disappear from the OS and the kernel would report I/O errors on a missing device. Sometimes this happened during the initial install. Sometimes 5 minutes after the install when starting a terminal. I couldn't even type "ls" because the "ls" command is on the drive that went away.
Saw reports of PCIE Gen5 incompatibilities so I moved it to a Gen4 slot and then it worked.
But the machine had so many other random crashes and errors reported in system logs saying "This is a hardware error not software" and stuff like that. Returned it all.
Just got an AMD Ryzen 9 9950X and Gigabyte X870E AORUS PRO
The Gen5 drive seems to be working at Gen5 speeds.
The particularly interesting part is I have a new x870 motherboard which supports m.2 slot 2 as being 0x, 2x, or 4x CPU direct lanes depending if you want 4x, 2x, or 0x to go to the USB 4 ports respectively. At first it sounds like a good combo - put the drive which wants to run at x2 only in the extra slot where x2 only mode is a reasonable tradeoff and still get great bandwidth because those lanes are pcie 5 and not through the chipset. For whatever reason though that drive only ever comes up in an x4 slot (at x2 speed) but not any x2 slots I've tried. I don't know enough about PCIe to assume why that is for sure but it seemed odd to me it was any way but "something is wrong with the 3rd or 4th lane and setting the slot to x2 lets the first 2 work at x2 the same as when the slot is set to x4 and it only comes up as x2".