Y510P NGFF SSD not being detected.

Hello,

I just soldered a NGFF connector to my laptop's motherboard, and I installed a 128GB MyDigitalSSD SSD and it is not being detected, I can't find it in the disk management as well. I called Lenovo technical support yesterday and they told me that installing the connector should be enough, no additional ICs or controllers are required.

I tried a few solutions,including :
1. Switching the boot to Legacy instead of UEFI.
2. Reinstalled the chipset driver.
3. Installed ExpressCache and it didn't work either.

Note: The SSD seems like it is getting power since I can feel the heat when I touch it.


Thanks,
Hush

 

Is it showing up in the bios?

 

Unfortunately not

 

Um, you probably didn't solder is correctly is my best guess.

 

I don't think so, you can even look at these photos of the connector after soldering, looks perfect to me :s
https://www.dropbox.com/s/gftoobbb0j8txpq/DSC_0211.JPG
https://www.dropbox.com/s/aomq72voc2k3nr6/DSC_0212.JPG

 

Yes but did the solder flow all the way through the holes? These are multilayer PCBs with different connections all the way through the holes and if you didn't flow the solder all the way then there might be some connections missing.

 

I'm sorry but can you please tell me what holes are you talking about? Here is a picture of the place of the connector before soldering it:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/igtgu9mt634b1qz/SSD Slot.jpg

 

Ah, ok. My mistake. I thought the connector had pins that go through the PCB. It is possible that there are other connections on the mobo that were no made during the manufacturing which are causing your problems. It is that or there is a problem with your soldering that you cannot see. Sorry.

 

Thank you very much for your help

I was thinking about this for a while, is there a way to check whether the connector exists from the OS? And is it possible to check whether the NGFF SSD itself is defective?

 

No idea, you are going into a territory that would require somebody with specialized testing equipment. Good luck and if you do manage to get this working then you will be pretty lucky.

 

Can you please do me a favor? I just want to know whether there is anything until the plastic covering right behind the NGFF connector, on this area
https://www.dropbox.com/s/aomq72voc2k3nr6/DSC_0212.JPG

 

After a long chat with lenovo techinal support, they told me that they don't know such detailed information, all they can do is google(I was asking about how is the NGFF connected and what is controlling it), and I even asked for a new motherboard with a connector and they told me that they don't currently have it, and "Call us in 4-5 weeks" D:

 

Try inserting the MydigitalSSD NGFF card facing downward. The 1st time I inserted mine with front facing up the SSD was not detected by BIOS. Inserting it with face downward did the trick. Good work by the way on your soldering.

 

Not sure I have time to take it apart to do that right now, maybe somebody else can lend you a hand with that, sorry.

 

No need to take it apart, just look behind it and tell me if you see anything

 

I took a quick look on my y410p, (not y510p, but pretty much the same). Unless that piece is below a piece of plastic/metal, I could not find anything similar to it. This could suggest that you're missing something .

 

Thanks

Its not a piece of plastic or metal, what I am expecting is something like this:

 

What I mean is there might be some plastic (part of the case) that's covering it, since not much of the motherboard is visible with just the backing removed. I didn't see a place that looked like it was missing a chip either.

 

Which is why I said I didn't have time to look. I don't have time to disassemble the laptop to look, sorry.

 

Aha, thanks for trying to help me, I really appreciate it

Just talked to Amazon and I'm returning the SSD, I guess I'll get me a 16GB to test on now instead

 

Btw, you might be able to get some help from tech inferno.
Lenovo / IBM

 

Thank you, I just posted a thread and its waiting for a moderator to approve it

 

I have a y410p. The M.2 SSD cache drive was working when i first bought the computer. When I reinstalled windows 8.1, never worked again. For a while I was able to see it in Disk Manager, at which point I could 'initialize' the disk as either GPT or MBR. However, as soon as I would reboot and reopen Disk Manager, it would ask me to initialize the disk, again. So it seems that rebooting would wipe out any memory of the disk being present. This cycle of initializing and then starting over again after reboot has been going on since January, and I essentially forgot about it after a while. Then, the other day, I decided to try to get it working again.
I was able to initialize the disk, and then successfully installed ExpressCache, which created the necessary partitions on the SSD for caching. However, as it has always done in the past, as soon as I rebooted, the system completely forgot about the drive. However, this time, the disk no longer appears in Disk Manager. The disk is no longer visible in the BIOS. The disk is no longer visible anywhere.

I have tried this sequence:
uninstall the ExpressCache driver/software --> remove the m.2 SSD --> boot to windows --> shut down --> reinstall m.2 SSD --> boot to windows

This did not work. I thought this would force it to recognize the drive as new hardware, but it did not.


Now I read someone above suggest to flip the m.2 SSD upside down and maybe that will help. So, as soon as I finish a large rendering job and I am able to power down, I will try to flip the SSD over and see if that does the trick. Otherwise, I am going to have to file for lenovo warranty (which i want to avoid if i can because it's never fun being without a PC for any length of time)