Motherboard Issues Limiting Gen5 SSDs To Gen1 Speeds

People using AMD X670E motherboards with Gen5 SSDs are reporting issues, including devices being limited to Gen1 speeds.

“And it’s not just Gen5 speeds being limited,” reports WCCF Tech. “When both the first Gen5 SSD slot and the PCIe Gen5 slot are populated, the system experiences random crashes, with several users unable to boot into Windows.”

The site reports that users are having problems with Gen5 SSDs such as the Crucial T700 and T705 SSD. 

“Users report that the Gen5 SSDs ran flawlessly at the start but later, their systems started to hang, crash & fail to boot into Windows. It would take several restarts before the system would eventually work but upon troubleshooting, it was discovered that the Gen5 SSDs were running at Gen1 speeds which hampers the overall speed and performance.

“The ASUS and MSI motherboard forums show several users running X670E motherboards and a graphics card in the first slot experiencing similar issues. It was discovered by some users that reverting to Gen4 speeds or using a Gen4 drive would resolve the issue and the systems would work flawlessly, which made some users believe that the issue was with the Gen5 drives, but upon trying different sets of Gen5 SSDs from the same or different manufacturers, it was discovered that the issue persisted.”

On an ASUS forum, in a thread that appears to have been deleted, one user running an ASUS X670E motherboard with the Crucial T705 SSD got a response from Crucial’s support team.

“We would like to inform you that we escalated your issue to our dedicated team for further investigation, and they informed us that the problem lies with the motherboard rather than the Crucial SSD. 

“This behaviour has been observed across various motherboards from different manufacturers, and we were able to replicate it on our in-house systems as well.

“The issue seems to occur when a Gen5 SSD is connected to a Gen5 slot on the motherboard, which is why you are not experiencing this problem with your Gen4 drive. If you were to connect the Crucial T705 SSD to Gen4 speeds at all times, this issue would likely be resolved.

“Unfortunately, the only fix for this issue is a BIOS update from the motherboard manufacturer. We recommend reaching out to your motherboard’s manufacturer to inquire about a potential BIOS update that addresses this specific problem. We have seen BIOS updates from multiple manufacturers that help resolve this kind of issue.

“Please note that the Crucial T705 SSD will perform at whatever speed the motherboard allows, and this is not a fault of the drive itself.”

PC Mag describes PCIe (for Peripheral Component Interconnect Express) 5.0 as “the latest PCIe standard, offering substantial increases in bandwidth over previous generations. Using a variable-length design, a PCIe slot can have between one and 16 PCIe links, which determine its overall speed.”

AMD’s AM5 platform was the first “full-fledged PCIe Gen5 platform”, offering Gen5 capabilities for both GPUs and SSDs, WCCF Tech says.

“The first iteration of AM5 motherboards, the X670E and B650E series, gave users both GPU and SSD Gen5 support while the Non-E motherboards offered optional support with Gen5 SSDs. The upcoming X870E and X870 platforms will further extend Gen5 capabilities.”