Ugh, this is infuriating. It still will not detect the M.2 SSD.

Chatted with ASUS Tech Support briefly and they said it should be plug and play as well as compatible. I have the SM951 128GB AHCI PCIe3x4 M.2 SSD in there.

Part number: MZHPV128HDGM-00000

Tried booting with my regular SSD disconnected so only the new M.2 drive was installed. Still nothing.

The Asus support guy told me I needed a PCIe 3.0x4, according to my serial number. That's what my SM951 is.

Wouldn't a SATA3 M.2 SSD require a B&M key connector type? While mine is an M type on my motherboard. I have a picture of it attached to my first post. Unless SATA3 doesn't need all the pins connected to work?

Wischmaster wrote:
The Asus support guy told me I needed a PCIe 3.0x4, according to my serial number. That's what my SM951 is.

If you want to send me a PM at cl-Albert with your serial number, I can double-check which motherboard you have, but if you really have the GL552VW-DH71 model, those will only come with the motherboards supporting SATA3 M.2 SSDs.

Wischmaster wrote:

Wouldn't a SATA3 M.2 SSD require a B&M key connector type? While mine is an M type on my motherboard. I have a picture of it attached to my first post. Unless SATA3 doesn't need all the pins connected to work?

You may want to verify with others if necessary since I don't normally fool around with M.2 SSDs too much, but the SATA M.2 SSD picture on Samsung's website below shows B+M keying for their SSD 860 EVO M.2 SATA 500GB, so it appears you can plug it in your system at least to try out.
Although this may or may not be completely correct, it doesn't appear the M.2 SSD keying for our units really tells you much about which M.2 SSDs are supported or can be used since you can still plug in M.2 SSDs with B+M keying to the M type M.2 slots.
Sorry this couldn't be clearer or easier!
https://www.samsung.com/us/computing/memory-storage/solid-state-drives/ssd-860-evo-m-2-sata-500gb-mz...


fyi.
Again, I may not be completely correct about this, but not sure that M.2 SSD slots with both B and M keying exist.
Sounds like they may be either using B keying or M keying while "M.2 SSDs with B+M keying maximize compatibility in both slots" as mentioned in the article below (which appeared to be discussing PCIe M.2 SSDs, but the keying discussion would still apply to SATA M.2 SSDs), so again, the M.2 SSD slot keying may not necessarily tell you a whole lot about which type of M.2 SSDs can actually be used in the system.
Hope this helps and feel free to discuss more or discuss with others.

https://rog.asus.com/articles/maximus-motherboards/buying-an-m-2-ssd-how-to-tell-which-is-which/

Thanks for your help cl-Albert!

So my question to anyone out there reading this that has experience with M.2 SSD's: since the SATA interface for these is a B+M connector, will it work in a M connector style socket?

As cl-Albert stated, there may not be a specific B+M only socket on a motherboard (not that I could find at least) so that must mean even though some of the pins on the board wouldn't have a connection due to the key gap, it would still work?

Visual for reference is attached. My board which has an M type key and an 860 EVO SATA with a B+M key.

Alright, since I couldn't find any information on M.2 slot compatibility in regards to if a "B+M" key will work in a "M" key slot even though some pins have no contact on the board side, I decided to take the plunge and order yet another M.2 SSD. This would be my third.

I ordered the above shown Samsung 860 EVO 250GB M.2 SATA SSD.

When I originally contacted support they said I needed a PCIe 3.0x4 AHCI compatible M.2 SSD, this was incorrect because I could never get the drive to interact. After cl-Albert graciously helped me, he did some serial number research and found that I indeed needed a SATA M.2 SSD.

I installed the drive today and when I went to Disk Management, I was pleasantly met with a window stating that I needed to configure the drive for Windows to use it. After that, it's shown as an unallocated drive and ready to use. Now to clear everything, make the M.2 my boot drive and reinstall everything.

I've attached an image of the keys to show what I meant by pins not having contact as well as an installed picture. I do this because I notice a huge lack of pictures with most things on this forum, they can be very informative to someone else having this same issue. Which apparently is quite a few, based on my weeks of Googling 😮

Mark this one as solved!

Wischmaster wrote:
Alright, since I couldn't find any information on M.2 slot compatibility in regards to if a "B+M" key will work in a "M" key slot even though some pins have no contact on the board side, I decided to take the plunge and order yet another M.2 SSD. This would be my third.

I ordered the above shown Samsung 860 EVO 250GB M.2 SATA SSD.

When I originally contacted support they said I needed a PCIe 3.0x4 AHCI compatible M.2 SSD, this was incorrect because I could never get the drive to interact. After cl-Albert graciously helped me, he did some serial number research and found that I indeed needed a SATA M.2 SSD.

I installed the drive today and when I went to Disk Management, I was pleasantly met with a window stating that I needed to configure the drive for Windows to use it. After that, it's shown as an unallocated drive and ready to use. Now to clear everything, make the M.2 my boot drive and reinstall everything.

I've attached an image of the keys to show what I meant by pins not having contact as well as an installed picture. I do this because I notice a huge lack of pictures with most things on this forum, they can be very informative to someone else having this same issue. Which apparently is quite a few, based on my weeks of Googling 😮

Mark this one as solved!

Thanks for all the due diligence in chasing down a solution. I am currently trying to do the exact same thing with this computer, instal an M.2 for the operating system, as well as upgrade my RAM a bit, and change the HDD to a SSD for storage. Your trial and error with pictures was perfect! Since I couldn't find a solid answer anywhere else, nor get an answer for the so called "professionals" in the support division. Looks like you found a winner there with cl-Albert. I really find it amazing that 2 years later, the same lack of information still (doesn't) exists. And agree 100%, pictures included can explain more than any amount of words by themselves.
Thanks again!