NVMe doesn't show up

[ReddestDream]

Same problem as the OP. Just got a new Pinebook Pro. NVMe adapter does not work. I've tried 3 drives and none of them appear.

I think the issue, at least in my case, actually has more to do with the PCIe bus just not initializing. I've tried lspci with various forms and flags and I can't get anything to show up with or without an NVMe drive plugged in.

I suspect the relevant error involves the bit from dmesg:

Code:

rockchip-pcie f8000000.pcie: PCIe link training gen1 timeout!
rockchip-pcie: probe of f8000000.pcie failed with error -110

Not sure if this is a hardware defect or if I just need more time to play around more with uboot and/or the kernel.

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[bcnaz]

Hi, I just got my pinebook pro. Upon playing it a little bit, I installed manjaro i3 on the emmc. And Installed a NVMe but for some reason NVMe doesn't show up. Do I have to somehow enable the NVMe ? (script etc.) It also doesn't show up when I do df -h
When I switch on the pinebook, power led lights up orange for 5 seconds and then turns to green is it normal?
I appreciate if you could help. Thanks in advance.

I also bought the NVME adapter and a Adata drive to go with it.

But I have got sidetracked in the Pine phone frenzy myself,  and put off that upgrade for the time being.

There was a lot of discussion about doing this upgrade in the older forum posts.
and there were several forum members who did succeed in making this work..  BUT, also many who could NOT.

IF  I was ready to do that upgrade,  I would dig into those older posts,  also heed the warnings that some posted back then
It can be done, but it is not a simple matter.

Good Luck

[ReddestDream]

Same problem as the OP. Just got a new Pinebook Pro. NVMe adapter does not work. I've tried 3 drives and none of them appear.

I think the issue, at least in my case, actually has more to do with the PCIe bus just not initializing. I've tried lspci with various forms and flags and I can't get anything to show up with or without an NVMe drive plugged in.

I suspect the relevant error involves the bit from dmesg:

Code:

rockchip-pcie f8000000.pcie: PCIe link training gen1 timeout!
rockchip-pcie: probe of f8000000.pcie failed with error -110

Not sure if this is a hardware defect or if I just need more time to play around more with uboot and/or the kernel.

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

After further investigation both on this forum and other sources and multiple attempts with various uboots and kernels, I have concluded that either my NVMe adapter board/ribbon cable is dead or my Pinebook Pro mainboard is partly defective (all other hardware appears to work) and can't communicate with the adapter. :/

I plan to further test the former possibility with continuity and voltage checks on the adapter board itself. I also have a final NVMe drive to test that is arriving Saturday.

Unfortunately, both the NVMe board and the spare Pinebook Pro mainboards are currently out of stock, so I can't order more of those to try.

I am also concerned given that Samurai_Crow said that there is currently a power supply issue with new Pinebook Pro boards and the NVMe adapter. Perhaps this is design defect and not just a one-off thing . . .

If any one has any further thoughts or ideas, please let me know. I got this Pinebook Pro in part to be able to play with NVMe and PCIe in general on ARM Thanks!

[Arwen]

@Seferi and @ReddestDream, I read through the posts and I don't see the model of the NVMe drive you have. Please post it.

On at least one rare occasion, a person accidentally bought a M.2 SATA drive. Not NVMe. Not saying that is the case here.

On the other hand, some people have bought high performing M.2 NVMe drives. Only to find out that it won't work in the Pinebook Pro because it also draws a ton of power. And does not support power saving functions.

Further, their appears to be an occasional problem with the SoC running at PCIe 2.x speeds, (5Gbps). Some people have limited their PCIe lanes to 1.x speeds, (2.5Gbps), and then had perfect reliability. Still pretty decent performance compared to the eMMC or SD card. (4 lanes of PCIe 1.x @ 2.5Gbp, minus the protocol overhead of 20%, still gives 8Gbps / 1GBps speed.)

[Seferi]

@Seferi and @ReddestDream, I read through the posts and I don't see the model of the NVMe drive you have. Please post it.

On at least one rare occasion, a person accidentally bought a M.2 SATA drive. Not NVMe. Not saying that is the case here.

On the other hand, some people have bought high performing M.2 NVMe drives. Only to find out that it won't work in the Pinebook Pro because it also draws a ton of power. And does not support power saving functions.

Further, their appears to be an occasional problem with the SoC running at PCIe 2.x speeds, (5Gbps). Some people have limited their PCIe lanes to 1.x speeds, (2.5Gbps), and then had perfect reliability. Still pretty decent performance compared to the eMMC or SD card. (4 lanes of PCIe 1.x @ 2.5Gbp, minus the protocol overhead of 20%, still gives 8Gbps / 1GBps speed.)

Thanks for the reply mate. Here is my drive:
   

[ReddestDream]

@Seferi and @ReddestDream, I read through the posts and I don't see the model of the NVMe drive you have. Please post it.

On at least one rare occasion, a person accidentally bought a M.2 SATA drive. Not NVMe. Not saying that is the case here.

On the other hand, some people have bought high performing M.2 NVMe drives. Only to find out that it won't work in the Pinebook Pro because it also draws a ton of power. And does not support power saving functions.

Further, their appears to be an occasional problem with the SoC running at PCIe 2.x speeds, (5Gbps). Some people have limited their PCIe lanes to 1.x speeds, (2.5Gbps), and then had perfect reliability. Still pretty decent performance compared to the eMMC or SD card. (4 lanes of PCIe 1.x @ 2.5Gbp, minus the protocol overhead of 20%, still gives 8Gbps / 1GBps speed.)

Thanks for the reply mate. Here is my drive:

Figured out my issue. The ribbon cable was defective and didn't have the pins on the SSD-side exposed/uncoated. The ribbon failed my continuity test with a multimeter. No signals were ever passing through it, explaining why the PBP never saw it. Apparently it wasn't uncoated properly at the factory. I purchased a new NVMe adapter kit from Ameridroid. Fingers crossed this one will work.

I had tested a Crucial 500 GB CT1000P1SSD8, Samsung 960 EVO 1 TB, and a Sabrent Rocket Q 1 TB. All these drives are NVMe and work in my NVMe USB adapter just fine. nvme wasn't even showing up in dmesg. Nothing on lspci. Nothing in nvme list. But glad it seems like it was just the ribbon and not something I did.

[Seferi]

@Seferi and @ReddestDream, I read through the posts and I don't see the model of the NVMe drive you have. Please post it.

On at least one rare occasion, a person accidentally bought a M.2 SATA drive. Not NVMe. Not saying that is the case here.

On the other hand, some people have bought high performing M.2 NVMe drives. Only to find out that it won't work in the Pinebook Pro because it also draws a ton of power. And does not support power saving functions.

Further, their appears to be an occasional problem with the SoC running at PCIe 2.x speeds, (5Gbps). Some people have limited their PCIe lanes to 1.x speeds, (2.5Gbps), and then had perfect reliability. Still pretty decent performance compared to the eMMC or SD card. (4 lanes of PCIe 1.x @ 2.5Gbp, minus the protocol overhead of 20%, still gives 8Gbps / 1GBps speed.)

Thanks for the reply mate. Here is my drive:

Figured out my issue. The ribbon cable was defective and didn't have the pins on the SSD-side exposed/uncoated. The ribbon failed my continuity test with a multimeter. No signals were ever passing through it, explaining why the PBP never saw it. Apparently it wasn't uncoated properly at the factory. I purchased a new NVMe adapter kit from Ameridroid. Fingers crossed this one will work.

I had tested a Crucial 500 GB CT1000P1SSD8, Samsung 960 EVO 1 TB, and a Sabrent Rocket Q 1 TB. All these drives are NVMe and work in my NVMe USB adapter just fine. nvme wasn't even showing up in dmesg. Nothing on lspci. Nothing in nvme list. But glad it seems like it was just the ribbon and not something I did.

Unfortunately I don't have the tools to prove if I have a faulty cable.. But let us know if you could make it work with the new cable mate. Thanks..

[Arwen]

@Seferi It does appear that the Kingston A2000 @ 250GB will work, but you may need to limit it's power consumption. At the PS 0 state, it can take up to 9 watts. That's alot for our little Pinebook Pros. See this table;

https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php?title=...patibility

To limit power consumption, the Pinebook Pro Wiki has some information;

https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php?title=...r_limiting

Note that the Pine64 Wiki is open to all. And while not perfect for our Pinebook Pros, it's come a LONG way from the beginning. So if you have issues about the Wiki, note them and ask around. Either here for NVMe power limiting, or a new post if it's unrelated to the NVMe.

Now all that said, I don't know why your NVMe is not working. Could be the cable like @ReddestDream has. A visual inspection of the cable might give you a clue. Or a picture posted here that @ReddestDream might be able to recognize as same problem they had.

[Seferi]

@Seferi  It does appear that the Kingston A2000 @ 250GB will work, but you may need to limit it's power consumption. At the PS 0 state, it can take up to 9 watts. That's alot for our little Pinebook Pros. See this table;

https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php?title=...patibility

To limit power consumption, the Pinebook Pro Wiki has some information;

https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php?title=...r_limiting

Note that the Pine64 Wiki is open to all. And while not perfect for our Pinebook Pros, it's come a LONG way from the beginning. So if you have issues about the Wiki, note them and ask around. Either here for NVMe power limiting, or a new post if it's unrelated to the NVMe.

Now all that said, I don't know why your NVMe is not working. Could be the cable like @ReddestDream has. A visual inspection of the cable might give you a clue. Or a picture posted here that @ReddestDream might be able to recognize as same problem they had.

Thanks for the info @Arwen  I actually checked the nvme list in wiki before I bought the drive. It looked good to me because note section was empty, power saving was enabled by default etc.. And it was the first entry in the wiki so I thought it as probably the best option..
I'll check the cable again and try to find out if its working properly.. And try the script next.. Thanks again..

[ReddestDream]

@Seferi I got the new NVMe adapter from Ameridroid yesterday.

The new ribbon included in that kit worked! Finally got an NVMe installed in my Pinebook Pro (Crucial 500 GB CT1000P1SSD8)!