HELP STATION
Expert solutions for everday problems.
Cooling M.2 drives
I’ve spent several weeks seeking advice on this topic, but haven’t found a spec for the recommended operating range for M.2 drives. All I’ve found are mixed messages suggesting they do need cooling and they don’t need cooling. People have asked the question because they were concerned after seeing high temperatures via monitoring software like Speedfan and CrystalDiskInfo.
There’s also a question over whether to purchase cooling with a fan or without. My first attempt was to mistakenly purchase an EZDIY=FAB 5V ARGB M.2 Heatsink for my Gigabyte Z370 HD3 motherboard, which doesn’t have a 5V location to plug it in. Instead, I’ve ordered a Sabrent M.2 2280 Heatsink that has no fan. One final question: do you recommend using thermal compound paste instead of the “thermal pads/tape” they come with?
Dean Johnson
TechLife responds: Quite a bit to unpack here. The simple answer is: unless your drive is running consistently ‘hot’, there’s no point in fitting any cooling. But what constitutes ‘hot’? First, M.2 drives naturally run hotter – by around 20°C than other installed drives. That’s down to where it’s installed on the motherboard, typically near the GPU and CPU where temperatures are higher.
M.2 drives supply two temperature sensors – one for the drive itself, and the other for the controller. The latter is consistently hotter than the former, but it’s the former you should monitor closely. CrystalDiskInfo and your drive’s official tool (such as Samsung Magician) will provide a real-time display of the drive’s temperature, but you can monitor both sensors using a tool such as HWiNFO64 ( www.hwinfo.com). It provides minimum and maximum figures to go with the current setting.
The M.2 drive’s primary sensor on a TechLife PC reports the drive holding a steady temperature of around 50-55°C, while the controller temperature is around 15°C hotter. This is well within acceptable parameters. You only need to start worrying when the drive reaches 75°C or higher, which could induce thermal throttling, reducing the drive’s performance to ensure it stays within temperature limits.
In the vast majority of cases, your drive isn’t going to be taxed enough to drive its temperature to unsafe levels except in limited circumstances, and that’s when the throttling should kick in.
The only time you’d want to consider a heatsink is if those idling temperatures are much higher than the comfortable norms observed on our rig. That might indicate airflow issues inside a cramped case, and it’s likely your other components will be running hot too. Start by addressing any obvious airflow issues such as poorly stowed cables or clogged-up fans. If your mobo has two M.2 ports of identical spec, you might want to consider moving the drive to the other one to see if runs a little cooler there.
If you’re unable to bring down the temperature of the drive without external help, then invest in a heatsink. Note that if you do that, you should look to remove any labeling covering the NANDs to improve heat transfer to the heatsink.
As for applying thermal paste, the overall effect on reducing temperature will be minimal, so TechLife would recommend sticking with the thermal pads that ship with the heatsink.
Windows boot errors
I just built a PC with Asus ROG Strix B550-F gaming mobo, Ryzen 5 5600X CPU, and 1TB M.2 NVMe drive for Windows and apps. It replaced my old overclocked i7-4770K machine and I’m pleased with the results with one major exception: whenever I make an adjustment in the UEFI, Windows won’t load, and I receive a message that the \system32\ winload.sys file is missing. I then click ‘Select an OS’, choose the only option (Windows 10), and then after an hour of flashing disk lights and dark screen Windows finally loads. I run ChkDsk and a few errors are noted as having been repaired. The system then runs okay, but I’m avoiding any BIOS adjustments. If I then go back into the UEFI and verify the M.2 drive is the first boot device, and then exit without saving, the
PC boots without problems. Can you explain why this is occurring and if there is anything I can do to make BIOS adjustments reliable? Philip Wiener
TechLife responds: There were lots of questions we wanted answers to before we could suggest anything concrete, but by the time Philip replied to our email, he’d already found – and fixed – the source of his problem. Prior to now, he’d routinely moved his paging file off the system drive – in the case of his new PC, from the M.2 system drive to his 2TB SSD. Restoring the paging file to its original location fixed his problem, and he can now boot into Windows in around 20-30 seconds.
The old trick of moving your paging file to a separate drive to improve performance is pretty much redundant these days with fast M.2 and SSD drives, particularly as Windows is likely to be installed on the fastest drive in your system. To remove any manually set paging file settings, right-click the Start button and choose System, then click ‘Advanced system settings’ to open the old System Properties Control Panel at the Advanced tab. Click Settings… under Performance, switch to the Advanced tab, and click Change… under ‘Virtual memory’. Tick ‘Automatically manage paging file size for all drives’ and click OK three times, rebooting at the end of the process.
App Store follow-up
I just read the question from Gerry Exstein about not being able to download the calculator from the Microsoft Store. I have, through my own experience discovered why when you hit ‘Get’ nothing happens. Unknown to me, Microsoft limits the number of devices a logged-in user can use to access the Store. Officially it’s ten, but in many cases – including my experience – it tops out at five. I had this issue when I got my Surface. I struggled for hours then discovered this limit. I went into my MS account to devices and saw only six were registered, including a few I no longer owned. I deleted these redundant devices and was able to use the Store without any problems!
Gregory Watts
TechLife responds: They say you can’t teach an old editor new tricks, but Gregory’s helpful tip proves the opposite, so thanks for sharing it. To see what devices are registered to your account, open your browser and sign in at https:// account.microsoft.com/account. Click the Devices section to view a list of devices currently connected to your account. Click a redundant entry and you’ll see a ‘Remove device’ option. Click this to free up slots in your Microsoft account and ensure you don’t fall foul of the mysteriously malfunctioning
Store problem.
Protect 2FA codes
I’m looking into switching on two-step verification for as many online accounts as possible but am worried about what happens if I lose access to the 2FA codes (say, if my phone was stolen). What options are there for me to securely back up these codes? Steve Cox
TechLife responds: When you come to set up a 2FA code with an online account, you should be given an option to generate a 16-character ‘recovery key’, which you can use to recover the 2FA code on your new device through a new instance of your 2FA app. You can also generate recovery keys for other purposes too, for example, to recover a Firefox Account when you forget your account password.
You can print this recovery code out or write it down, or copy and paste it somewhere secure, say inside a Bitwarden secure note. Of course, you’re trusting Bitwarden’s servers to securely host your passwords in this instance.
What can you do if you haven’t generated these codes? First, log back into the account in question and navigate to the security section to see if you can generate a new recovery code for the account or 2FA code; if you can then problem solved, but if not, you can disable 2FA for that account, then set up a new 2FA code, making sure that this time you do take a copy of your recovery key.
If this seems like too much effort, then another option is to switch your 2FA app to Authy ( https://authy.com). Authy allows you to sync your recovery codes between as many trusted devices as you like – phone, tablet, computer (via desktop app), and browsers (via add-ons). And if that’s not sufficient, Authy also supports secure backups to the cloud via its servers – generate a strong password and your codes will be online and retrievable should you lose your device. Both sync and backup options are optional and can easily be disabled depending on what method(s) you trust.
TPM restart issue
I read that you were able to help a guy fix his strange shut-down issue and I thought about the intermittent problem I’ve had with my own system: built around an MSI Z170A GAMING M5 1.0 (BIOS v 1.F0). From the beginning, the machine would go directly to the BIOS whenever I attempted to restart (as opposed to shutting down and starting up manually). I exit without saving and the machine boots fine 100 percent of the time. Occasionally for Windows Update, the machine will restart properly, but not for any other program or if I try to restart from the Start menu. I’ve found nothing in my searches. Can you help?
Zach Pulkin
TechLife responds: Before we had a chance to speak to Zach, he stumbled on the solution to his problem while reading about Windows 11 system requirements. By enabling TPM 2.0 on his board, his PC now restarts properly. He asked us to print the tip for others, which we’re obviously happy to do.