The ASUS Z690 motherboard struggles with Gen 4 NVMe storage devices.
The ASUS Z690 motherboard struggles with Gen 4 NVMe storage devices.
Frankly, everything was left untouched. However, I exited from the Samsung drive in slot 1. It seems risky, but I’ve done this on my server and test bench PCs before whenever I needed to clone disks or back up to images.
I plan to install the Gen4 990 Pto drive in the M.2_1 port, using a fresh setup, and add just one secondary Gen3 WD SN750 in the M.2_4 slot. That’s it—just two drives. I also noted there might be an Asus driver that appears during optional Windows updates; I’m not sure what it is, but I’ll leave it to see if it affects me. Likely I’ll skip those updates this time. If it begins crashing again, I’ll have to return the 990 Pro. I can’t afford to waste the whole week fixing it.
CommanderAlex, thank you for your support and guidance. As mentioned before, I was about to run a final test. A clean setup, new Windows, empty secondary disk, no odd drivers—just what I wanted. Will it function properly? Not really. Within the first three minutes, I encountered a BSOD saying "critical_process_died." It looks like these Gen4 SSDs are causing issues regardless of my attempts. I still have plenty to test, but right now I just need to fix this and get things running again. So I’ll keep using my two Gen3 SN750 drives and return the Samsung 990 Pro and WD SN850x. Honestly, the difference between Gen3 and Gen4 isn’t huge at the moment. Back then, we were thrilled about SATA SSD speeds, and these Gen3 drives are already over ten times faster than those—definitely sufficient! Anyway, it’s been a good experience. Thanks again!
I'll share some updates here if you're interested. After a couple of days without any problems using just two Gen3 WD drives, I finally decided to upload a few games onto my game drive. Eventually, it stopped responding again, which is the same pattern as before. I think it might be affecting more than just Gen4 drives—it could be related to bandwidth or temperature issues, and Gen4 drives seem to reach their limit faster. With Gen3, you really have to push it; I was transferring around 150GB of game data until it failed. Right now, I'm rearranging the drives across different M.2 slots to check if a specific slot or drive is causing the problem. I also have a third unused Gen3 drive, so I'll add that in too to test whether having three makes it reach its limit sooner. In the meantime, I'll follow your suggestion and contact Asus Support for more info. It looks like their forums are back online, so I'll also check there and talk to some users.
There are several discussions on Asus ROG forums about similar problems. Some users report unexpected restarts after installing a new Gen4 drive or adding a second one. One person reported resolving the issue by returning the board via RMA and confirmed it worked, so I’ll contact Asus support right away. Another mentioned encountering BSODs with a new drive until they turned off AI Overclocking (which I don’t use). In both cases, the behavior appears random—either with Gen4 drives or multiple drives in the system. No clear pattern has been identified yet.
This message outlines the support process for ASUS products. They’ve directed users to contact Best Buy for warranty assistance and provided links for general help and product registration. It also mentions the possibility of reaching out via phone at 1-800-433-5778. The overall tone is straightforward, with a focus on directing customers to the right resources.
I had no idea about that. Did you buy the motherboard from Best Buy? I’m based in the U.S., but I’ve seen online discussions where people from the EU say they need to use the retailer’s system for returns, which isn’t typical here. That’s the only thing that comes to mind.