New Laptop - empty m.2 socket - doesn'r recognise SSD

ArthurDent said:

The second m.2 slot is just above and to the right of the 2280 PCIe card.

I got quite excited when I found out that my Dell Latitude E7440 had an empty M.2 slot next to its HDD.....

A laptop usually doesn´t have a "spare" m.2 port. When there are 2 M.2 ports, one is used for the SSD, the other for a Wi-Fi card.

To be precise, for an M.2 WWAN card, which my Dell's slot turned out to be intended for. Seems like it is possible to use an SSD in that slot though, but I haven't tried. Not much benefit now, when the HDD started to die I replaced it with a 2.5" SATA SSD.

Caledon Ken said:

Did you say you installed a drive, the bios recognized but Windows doesn't?

Have you reviewed device manager with drive install, is anything in an error condition, yellow exclamation mark?

Are you using the Storage driver recommended by Lenovo or has Windows loaded a generic driver?

Hi,

By installed, I meant I had physically put the card in the slot, not installed as in drivers.

It is a moot point anyway as the slot is an m.2 PCIe and I had, in my naivety, put in a m.2 SATA III card - which I now know won't work. Interesting that BIOS picked it up however.

Here's what BIOS showed:



The SSD in the 'Disk 2' slot: RPFTJ.... is the OEM's 256GB card (with the label 'Union Memory' and LEN P/N SSS0R27339) and the SSD in the 'Disk 1' slot is the Transcend TS240GMTS card. Interestingly, the sockets are labelled the other way round on the mobo - the OEM card is in socket 'JSSD1' and the Transcend card in the 'JSSD2' socket *shrugs*

Art

Bree said:

I got quite excited when I found out that my Dell Latitude E7440 had an empty M.2 slot next to its HDD.....


To be precise, for an M.2 WWAN card, which my Dell's slot turned out to be intended for. Seems like it is possible to use an SSD in that slot though, but I haven't tried. Not much benefit now, when the HDD started to die I replaced it with a 2.5" SATA SSD.

Yes, you´re right. There can be an empty port for a WWAN (wireless wide area, cellular network) card.

Anibor said:

Yes, you´re right. There can be an empty port for a WWAN (wireless wide area, cellular network) card.

Apparently, with an Intel-based machine, the second slot can be used for a second SSD.

The lower slot is PCIe 4x 2280 and the upper PCIe 2x 2242.

Art

Anibor said:

You don´t necessarily have to use a 2242 card. The "adapter" which is seen below the SSD can be removed to install a 2280 card. Check this, remove the card and the adapter.

A laptop usually doesn´t have a "spare" m.2 port. When there are 2 M.2 ports, one is used for the SSD, the other for a Wi-Fi card.

You can get detailed information about the installed SSD using Hard Disk Sentinel and similar programs. Useful when searching for a replacement.

The 2242 M.2 slot uses an M key. I know little about M.2, but I believe that wouldn't be used for a wireless adapter. (Regardless, the laptop includes wireless, and that slot is empty.)

I'll repeat what another has said: the SSD that came with the unit is a 2242 one that is in an adapter for use in a 2280 slot. You should be able to easily replace it with a 2280 SSD. I can't speak to warranty issues.

Looking at the review for the IdeaPad S540 at NotebookCheck, it confirms that the second (smaller 2242) m.2 slot can be used for an SSD and that it is a 2x PCIe, and that the larger 2280 PCIe slot is a PCIe 4x slot.



I have ordered a 128GB 2242 m.2 NVMe PCIe card for the second slot for testing purposes.

Art

ArthurDent said:

Looking at the review for the IdeaPad S540 at NotebookCheck, it confirms that the second (smaller 2242) m.2 slot can be used for an SSD and that it is a 2x PCIe, and that the larger 2280 PCIe slot is a PCIe 4x slot.

(snip)

I have ordered a 128GB 2242 m.2 NVMe PCIe card for the second slot for testing purposes.

Art

I'm somewhat mystfied by your trajectory here, but I hope that it works for you.

If it was me, I'd swap in a larger 2280 SSD. I'd keep the original 224s plus adapter in case I had to restore it to factory for warranty purposes. It'd be only slightly unethical.

bobkn said:

I'm somewhat mystfied by your trajectory here, but I hope that it works for you.

If it was me, I'd swap in a larger 2280 SSD. I'd keep the original 224s plus adapter in case I had to restore it to factory for warranty purposes. It'd be only slightly unethical.

The problem is that the laptop is 2 weeks old and has a 3 year warranty. Cloning the 2242 card and swapping for a larger (and more freely-available) 2280 card is easy-peasy. However, there is an anti-tamper sticker over the SSD's retaining screw which, should the need for warranty service be required, would surely mean that Lenovo (or whoever) wouldn't honour the warranty.

Unless I can get the sticker up undamaged, I'd really rather not invalidate the 3 year warranty - given that the previous Lenovo laptop went belly-up after 13 months.

Art

ArthurDent said:

The problem is that the laptop is 2 weeks old and has a 3 year warranty. Cloning the 2242 card and swapping for a larger (and more freely-available) 2280 card is easy-peasy. However, there is an anti-tamper sticker over the SSD's retaining screw which, should the need for warranty service be required, would surely mean that Lenovo (or whoever) wouldn't honour the warranty.

Unless I can get the sticker up undamaged, I'd really rather not invalidate the 3 year warranty - given that the previous Lenovo laptop went belly-up after 13 months.

Art

I didn't notice the anti-tamper sticker in the online image. Your path makes more sense to me now.

Too bad that 42 mm long SSDs are so scarce, and that there's no option for a regular 2.5" SATA drive. (The SATA performance would be inferior to PCI-E/NVME. but better than adequate for most purposes.)