Question Did I just fry my Samsung 980 Pro M.2 drive?

[Joe NYC]

I have a poorly ventilated case (MicroATX). The M.2 drive I have is Samsung 980 Pro, no heatsink.

I started getting BSODs in Windows. Then, on reboot, most of the time the M.2 disappears, PC can't reboot. Goes to BIOS, and in BIOS the drive is not shown as being present. Power Off, Power On from that state most of the time brings it back to life.

I tried to re-trace my steps, of what I may have been doing prior to this happening, and I kind of narrowed it down to installing a big Windows update, and then installing Strarfield (125 GB). The install went unusually slowly (compared to my home PC. At first I blamed it on forgetting to re-attach Wifi antena, but it may have been the M.2 overheating and possibly throttling somehow...

(Another thing I did was swap the GPU, but that doesn't seem to correlate with any symptoms I am seeing.)

I resorted to re-installing Windows and the same thing. Typically what happens prior to BSOD, is after a while of usage, I go to activity that almost certainly needs a disk access,, I get a stall (seems like it is trying to use the drive) and then BSOD...

Seems like I will need to get a new M.2 NVMe drive and a new heatsink for the CPU, that will blow more air around the case. I have a slim Noctua heatsink fan, thkinking I can't fit anything taller. It turns out it was only my old Intel Mobo that had the CPU positioned in a way that required slim fan. When I got the AMD mobo, it became clear that AMD CPU is positioned in a way that it is not height limited like the Intel CPU was.

So I am not sure if I should go with something like Samsung 990 Pro with heatsink or something else...

 

[Super Spartan]

Go with a WD_BLACK SN850X, it doesn't overheat or throttle and has superb real world performance

 

[Shmee]

Bad drives can happen. The drive should be under warranty, I would simply RMA it.

 

[Joe NYC]

Bad drives can happen. The drive should be under warranty, I would simply RMA it.

I forgot about that. The drive is about 2.5 years old. Warranty is 5 years.

 

[In2Photos]

Definitely consider a heat sink. I use the one on my motherboard and it really does well at keeping the temp on the drives in check.

 

[Joe NYC]

Definitely consider a heat sink. I use the one on my motherboard and it really does well at keeping the temp on the drives in check.

I have to also check which may my CPU fan is blowing, to make sure it is blowing down. and potentially just get a higher rpm fan than I currently have. I have one of the slim Noctua fans, but I have room for a a more normal thickness fan.

My CPU is running a little hot in my case, so I need to make some minor improvements, which will also help cooling the SSD.

 

[Hail The Brain Slug]

Modern SSDs should handle themselves gracefully without a heatsink. Did you update the firmware at all? The 980 Pro had multiple drive-killing issues that were fixed via firmware releases.

 

[Joe NYC]

Modern SSDs should handle themselves gracefully without a heatsink. Did you update the firmware at all? The 980 Pro had multiple drive-killing issues that were fixed via firmware releases.

I did upgrade the firmware and software. In fact, last time I upgraded was not too long before the drive died. Which added it to my list of potential suspects.

 

[Hail The Brain Slug]

I did upgrade the firmware and software. In fact, last time I upgraded was not too long before the drive died. Which added it to my list of potential suspects.

There's a reason I stopped buying samsung drives after the 970 Pro

 

[jarablue]

Use the warranty. End of story you get a new drive and all is good. I have a 990 Pro with only the motherboards heatsink. Never gets above 40c.