# Where should i put the M.2 and what are good operating temps?



## Leoplate25 (Jan 15, 2020)

Hi, my questions are the following (same as in the title): Where should i put the M.2 (Micron 2200 - 256gb) and what are good operating temps? (30-48 running CrystalDisk Mark is ok?) I have an ASUS Hero XI WiFi and it has two slots to put an M.2, where should i put it? Between the processor and the graphics card i think it will be hotter, or am i wrong? I attach a picture of the mobo. Is it normal to run higher than SATA SSD's? Thanks in advance for your answers and sorry but this is my first M.2, i always owned sata SSD's.


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## erixx (Jan 15, 2020)

It doesn't matter, but one of the M.2 shares bandwidth with SATA, check the manual. (the heat won't be decisive, unless your CPU or GPU are on the border of collapsing from heat... )


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## bonehead123 (Jan 15, 2020)

Yes m.2's do tend to run a tad hotter than 2.5"/3.5" SSD's, due more chips/components being stuffed into a smaller space...

A few things to consider here:

1)  Your normal workload.... the more intense it is, the more attention you should pay to the temps of the drive...
2)  Overall case airflow.... if it is abundant, you may never have a temp issue, but if it is lacking, you may want to consider other options like pcie adapter cards, to get the drive(s) up where more air can get to them.

Personally, I am not a big fan of those solid flat metal heatsinks that are included with the mobo, but they may or may not be sufficient depending on the above factors.  I use EKWB's finned aluminum sinks on my WD Blacks, neveranottaproblemo, with average temps of 33-40c under heavy workloads


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## P4-630 (Jan 15, 2020)

My samsung evo gets 51 degrees when playing GTA V.


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## Leoplate25 (Jan 15, 2020)

erixx said:


> It doesn't matter, but one of the M.2 shares bandwidth with SATA, check the manual. (the heat won't be decisive, unless your CPU or GPU are on the border of collapsing from heat... )


I can't find in the manual which one shares bandwidth. It only says that you can put the 2280 m.2 in any of the 2 slots.



bonehead123 said:


> Yes m.2's do tend to run a tad hotter than 2.5"/3.5" SSD's, due more chips/components being stuffed into a smaller space...
> 
> A few things to consider here:
> 
> ...


Thanks for your answer. I put it in the second slot and i'm getting temps around 32 while idle and running the CrystalDisk Mark benchmark i get near 45 degrees.



P4-630 said:


> My samsung evo gets 51 degrees when playing GTA V.


Thanks for your answer!


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## erixx (Jan 15, 2020)

https://www.asus.com/es/Motherboards/ROG-MAXIMUS-XI-HERO/specifications/   The Notes at the bottom


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## Leoplate25 (Jan 15, 2020)

erixx said:


> https://www.asus.com/es/Motherboards/ROG-MAXIMUS-XI-HERO/specifications/   The Notes at the bottom


Oh, thanks! I decided to put it on the bottom, the m.2_2. Now it's running at idle at 30 degrees. The thing is if i put a screw on the m.2 it bends, so i decided to put the shields screws and it seems pretty solid. Is it ok to keep it that way? I attach a picture.


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## newtekie1 (Jan 15, 2020)

bonehead123 said:


> Yes m.2's do tend to run a tad hotter than 2.5"/3.5" SSD's, due more chips/components being stuffed into a smaller space...



The form factor doesn't really have much to do with it.  They get hotter because they are processing data faster than a 2.5" SATA drive.  In fact, the SATA M.2 drives don't really get hot at all.



Leoplate25 said:


> Thanks for your answer. I put it in the second slot and i'm getting temps around 32 while idle and running the CrystalDisk Mark benchmark i get near 45 degrees.



That's more than fine, most of these drives don't throttle until the 80° area.



Leoplate25 said:


> Oh, thanks! I decided to put it on the bottom, the m.2_2. Now it's running at idle at 30 degrees. The thing is if i put a screw on the m.2 it bends, so i decided to put the shields screws and it seems pretty solid. Is it ok to keep it that way? I attach a picture.



Did you put the stand-off in?


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## Leoplate25 (Jan 15, 2020)

newtekie1 said:


> The form factor doesn't really have much to do with it.  They get hotter because they are processing data faster than a 2.5" SATA drive.  In fact, the SATA M.2 drives don't really get hot at all.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Hi! Thanks! I quote myself and ask you a question "The thing is if i put a screw on the m.2 it bends, so i decided to put the shields screws and it seems pretty solid. Is it ok to keep it that way? I attach a picture." Is there any program to test for temps? Or CD Mark is just fine?


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## newtekie1 (Jan 15, 2020)

Leoplate25 said:


> Hi! Thanks! I quote myself and ask you a question "The thing is if i put a screw on the m.2 it bends, so i decided to put the shields screws and it seems pretty solid. Is it ok to keep it that way? I attach a picture." Is there any program to test for temps? Or CD Mark is just fine?



I would mount it correctly.  There is a little stand off that you put into the motherboard before you put the drive in.  Then the screw goes into the stand-off.

It is step 4 in this picture:


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## Leoplate25 (Jan 15, 2020)

newtekie1 said:


> I would mount it correctly.  There is a little stand off that you put into the motherboard before you put the drive in.  Then the screw goes into the stand-off.
> 
> It is step 4 in this picture:
> 
> View attachment 142307


Thanks! The thing is that the m.2 and the mobo didn't come with this stand off. Should i mount it in the first slot then?


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## Chomiq (Jan 15, 2020)

Check your motherboard box. The manual clearly shows that there should be a standoff.


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## Leoplate25 (Jan 15, 2020)

Chomiq said:


> Check your motherboard box. The manual clearly shows that there should be a standoff.


No, there isn't. I think it should come with the M.2. I put it in the first slot.



newtekie1 said:


> I would mount it correctly.  There is a little stand off that you put into the motherboard before you put the drive in.  Then the screw goes into the stand-off.
> 
> It is step 4 in this picture:
> 
> View attachment 142307


CrystalDisk Mark benchmark temps:


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## P4-630 (Jan 15, 2020)

Leoplate25 said:


> No, there isn't.



Check all plastic bags or little boxes that came in the motherboard box.


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## Leoplate25 (Jan 15, 2020)

P4-630 said:


> Check all plastic bags or little boxes that came in the motherboard box.


Found it at the bottom of the box. Silly me. Same temps no matter what slot i put it on. Max. temp 41 C, max. temp-2 44 C running CrystalDisk Mark. Is that good? Thanks!

EDIT: Does it matter which slot i use?


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## newtekie1 (Jan 15, 2020)

Leoplate25 said:


> I think it should come with the M.2.



It always comes with the motherboard. A lot of times they stuff them in the manual.


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## Leoplate25 (Jan 15, 2020)

newtekie1 said:


> It always comes with the motherboard. A lot of times they stuff them in the manual.


I found it at the bottom of the box. Thanks! Temps running CD Mark: 41-44 C. Good, bad, regular? I know Micron is a good brand, but it's the first m.2 i have, is it really good, good, regular? Thanks again for your time!


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## biffzinker (Jan 15, 2020)

Leoplate25 said:


> Thanks! Temps running CD Mark: 41-44 C. Good, bad, regular? I know Micron is a good brand, but it's the first m.2 i have, is it really good, good, regular?


Temperature looks normal to me. Nothing to be alarmed over.

My Samsung 970 EVO is running bare without a heatsink.
Idle temperature:


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## Leoplate25 (Jan 15, 2020)

biffzinker said:


> Temperature looks normal to me. Nothing to be alarmed over.
> 
> My Samsung 970 EVO is running bare without a heatsink.
> Idle temperature:
> View attachment 142316


Hi, and thanks for the answer. I don't know what is the temperature 2 stands for, do you know?


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## biffzinker (Jan 15, 2020)

Leoplate25 said:


> Hi, and thanks for the answer. I don't know what is the temperature 2 stands for, do you know?


Drive temperature 2 is the controller, and the first one is flash memory.


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## Leoplate25 (Jan 15, 2020)

biffzinker said:


> Drive temperature 2 is the controller, and the first one is flash memory.
> View attachment 142319


Thanks again! Good to know! At what temps should i be worried about? I read below 80C is fine, is it? Do you have any test to stress the disk or CrystalDisk Mark is enough?


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## biffzinker (Jan 15, 2020)

Leoplate25 said:


> Do you have any test to stress the disk or CrystalDisk Mark is enough?


CrstalDiskMark was enough to get tmp2 up to 73°C/tmp1 was up to 56°C during reads, and writes pushed it up to 86°C tmp2 (Red.) I should get a heatsink for it.


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## Leoplate25 (Jan 15, 2020)

biffzinker said:


> CrstalDiskMark was enough to get tmp2 up to 73°C/tmp1 was up to 56°C during reads, and writes pushed it up to 86°C tmp2 (Red.) I should get a heatsink for it.


ASUS did a good job then. I got a max of 43 (tmp1) and 46 (tmp2).


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## Kissamies (Jan 18, 2020)

Usually only the high-end ones do get hot, with these "basic" NVMe drives, temps aren't an issue. I got an Alphacool heatsink for my Intel 600p just for the looks.


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## Leoplate25 (Jan 19, 2020)

Sorry but i'm gonna post something different here because i didn't get any answers in my thread.

Here's the thing I'm getting 1000 points less on Passmark than the 13500 average showed in their site. I tried resetting the bios to its default, different power plans with no luck. In Cinebench r15 i got 1060 points (the normal) and in CB R20 i got 2626 (normal score too). The thing is when i had a 6600k i got more points in passmark running their CPU test. Doing some research i saw that my compression score is too low, almost half of a "normal" score. CPU is running fine, 55 degrees C tops, 4.3ghz all cores, 4.6ghz single core.

Here are some numbers (my scores vs passmark average scores):

CPU: 12.521 (low score in compression) vs 13.510 (passmark site)
Graphics Card: 14.849 vs 14.052 (passmark site)
M.2 Micron 2200 256gb: 13.523 vs 11.273 (passmark site)
SATA Samsung 1tb EVO 860: 5.309 vs 4.870 (passmark site)
RAM Score: 3.488 - read/write 19.236/15.205 vs read/write 18.562/14.399 (passmark site)

And i did what they told me in their site:

I did a fresh install of Windows.
I have SSD's (no need to defragment them).
I have an RTX 2070 and i don't use the integrated graphics.
All other scores are ok, just the CPU is low. I updated to the latest BIOS. I tried the BIOS on default.
I enabled and disabled XMP, i set it to manual too. Same thing.
I tried another installation of Windows in another SSD.
Cinebench R15 and R20 give me good scores (same as on internet).
The CPU runs at 55-56 degrees C tops.
Nothing is running on the background.

I attach my picture with the 12.500 score and one that i found on the web, with a "normal" score of 13.500.

Thanks and sorry again for posting this here.


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## Kissamies (Jan 19, 2020)

Personally I just don't trust Passmark.


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## spectatorx (Jan 19, 2020)

Out of curiosity on temps i just checked my gf's laptop, zenbook it is. Said laptop has micron 1100 ssd and seagate hdd. I just run hwinfo to check temps on both drives and micron ssd is 31 degrees, seagate hdd has exactly the same temperature. I must admit this laptop is mainly used for web browsing and watching videos, the most advanced thing it ever done was converting audio video and running the witcher 1 (which was running surprisingly well on integrated intel gpu of i5-8250u cpu) on the other hand this laptop is very thin so it doesn't have much space for cooling and airflow.


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## Leoplate25 (Jan 19, 2020)

spectatorx said:


> Out of curiosity on temps i just checked my gf's laptop, zenbook it is. Said laptop has micron 1100 ssd and seagate hdd. I just run hwinfo to check temps on both drives and micron ssd is 31 degrees, seagate hdd has exactly the same temperature. I must admit this laptop is mainly used for web browsing and watching videos, the most advanced thing it ever done was converting audio video and running the witcher 1 (which was running surprisingly well on integrated intel gpu of i5-8250u cpu) on the other hand this laptop is very thin so it doesn't have much space for cooling and airflow.


I have the same temps in my micron 2200, but heres too hot, 35 degrees C, but i have air conditioner at 24 degrees. I think temps are fine now ive been using it for a few days.



Chloe Price said:


> Personally I just don't trust Passmark.


I have "normal" scores with both cb r15 and r20 and i ran cpuz bench and its ok too. Thanks.


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## Leoplate25 (Jan 21, 2020)

Chloe Price said:


> Personally I just don't trust Passmark.


Hi, and sorry to bother you. Do you have any idea what "compression" is in Passmark? Thanks!


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## Kissamies (Jan 21, 2020)

Leoplate25 said:


> Hi, and sorry to bother you. Do you have any idea what "compression" is in Passmark? Thanks!


What I guess is like how it performs compressing files into .rar and .zip etc.


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## Leoplate25 (Jan 22, 2020)

Chloe Price said:


> What I guess is like how it performs compressing files into .rar and .zip etc.


And what i can't guess is why mine's so low, haha! Thanks!


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