MP 1,1-5,1 Problem Seating the Sonnet M.2 NVMe PCIe Adapter card in Mac Pro 5,1

[quadra605]

Has anyone run into a problem seating the Sonnet M.2 4x4 PCIe Card (Silent) Model in the PCIe slot because of that moveable retainer/locking bar on the back wall of the Mac Pro 5,1? My card seems to want to rock back & forth over it, keeping it from fitting 100% into the slot. If I accidentally push the back corner of the card, it pivots against the bar, the front pins shift out of the slot, a red LED lights up & the computer doesn't read the card.
It's almost like I need to cut a notch in the card to seat it properly. Currently, I'm using slot #2 above my GPU, but it happens in any slot. I called Sonnet and talked to a (very helpful & friendly!) tech and he admitted it can be tricky mounting in the older Mac Pros.

 

[MarkC426]

From the pcie wiki

PCIe SSDs - NVMe & AHCI

This is a general info thread for blade SSDs that can be used in the Mac Pro. This is a WikiPost so anyone with the proper credentials may edit it. NVMe SSDs can be used as a boot drive in the MP5,1 and MP6,1 with the latest firmware installed (beginning with version 140.0.0.0.0 for MP5,1 and...

forums.macrumors.com

• Sonnet M.2 4x4 PCIe Card FUS-SSD-4X4-E3: Supports four single sided 80mm M.2 blades. Uses x16 PLX PEX8747 switch. Heatsink with a fan over the blades and PCIe switch. Needs a GPU with pre-boot configuration support. Almost to big to fit MP5,1 length wise. Do not buy it if you need to boot Windows from the blades or will upgrade to a PC later; this card can't boot Windows. Sonnet has a support document about what major blades are single and double sided:
  https://sonnettech.com/support/downloads/manuals/M2_compatibility.pdf

 

[mikas]

Are you saying it does not sit still, while both ends of it are secured like they are attended to?

 

[avro707]

I actually have this exact card but I use it in slot 1 and it fits fine, no movement at all.

If I put it in slot two then it blocks cooling for the video card. It’s a close fit but it does fit. I’m not having to force the card to fit.

The one mark referenced is a different model.

 

[quadra605]

I actually have this exact card but I use it in slot 1 and it fits fine, no movement at all.

If I put it in slot two then it blocks cooling for the video card. It’s a close fit but it does fit. I’m not having to force the card to fit.

The one mark referenced is a different model.

I'm a little concerned about the cooling issue myself. It'll be right on top of my RX 580 Sapphire.?

 

[KeesMacPro]

My card seems to want to rock back & forth over it, keeping it from fitting 100% into the slot. If I accidentally push the back corner of the card, it pivots against the bar, the front pins shift out of the slot, a red LED lights up & the computer doesn't read the card.

If the card is properly seated any movement is virtually impossible...but pins sliding out of the PCI connector is impossible.
Apologies if I come up with the obvious, but are you sure you mounted the card with the retention bar "unlocked"?
See attachment.

 

[quadra605]

Are you saying it does not sit still, while both ends of it are secured like they are attended to?
View attachment 1912564

You're 100% right. Once the PCIe bracket is put in place, the pivoting stops & it locks it into place. I'm used to cards sitting rock solid when plugged into the slot, so it definitely threw me off.

 

[quadra605]

If the card is properly seated any movement is virtually impossible...but pins sliding out of the PCI connector is impossible.
Apologies if I come up with the obvious, but are you sure you mounted the card with the retention bar "unlocked"?
See attachment.

No, I slid that back into place, but you ARE correct--I hadn't replaced the retaining bar with the 2 thumb screws, and once I did THAT, it locked the card down so it could no longer pivot/rock against the back bar.

 

[avro707]

I'm a little concerned about the cooling issue myself. It'll be right on top of my RX 580 Sapphire.?

If you can, put the RX580 in slot 2 and the Sonnet in slot 1. That solves the cooling issue but also means slot 3 is not able to be used anymore.

 

[quadra605]

If you can, put the RX580 in slot 2 and the Sonnet in slot 1. That solves the cooling issue but also means slot 3 is not able to be used anymore.

I can probably do that. Has the temp issue actually caused any serious problems for anyone? I've looked around and seen a lot of concern about it, but not anything I can remember that caused real world issues.

 

[MarkC426]

It's probably two-fold.
The Sonnet will probably get hotter from gpu heat, and the gpu overheat with the sonnet.

Sounds like best solution as avro707 suggests, in Slot 1.

A lot depends on what you actually do, whether your gpu is always being taxed etc.
If not, then it may be fine in slot 2.

 

[KeesMacPro]

As @MarkC426 mentioned , both the Sonnet and the GPU probably will run hotter.
The GPU may not be affected so much, as the GPU fans will/should respond to that.
The Sonnet is a passively cooled card and depends a lot on the ambient T and airflow.
Besides blades shouldnt run too hot.

I converted an I/O Crest SI-PEX to passively cooled in my main MP (in slot 1) and set the PCI fan depending on the blade T.
This works perfectly ; the blades never run over 38 degrees (at high load in summer) and very moderate PCI fan rpm.

 

[quadra605]

As @MarkC426 mentioned , both the Sonnet and the GPU probably will run hotter.
The GPU may not be affected so much, as the GPU fans will/should respond to that.
The Sonnet is a passively cooled card and depends a lot on the ambient T and airflow.
Besides blades shouldnt run too hot.

I converted an I/O Crest SI-PEX to passively cooled in my main MP (in slot 1) and set the PCI fan depending on the blade T.
This works perfectly ; the blades never run over 38 degrees (at high load in summer) and very moderate PCI fan rpm.

Interesting solution. Are you using something like Macs Fan Control to set the temp thresholds? My work room here in Los Angeles gets very hot in the summer (no A/C, just Vornado fans on the floor & a ceiling fan)

 

[KeesMacPro]

Interesting solution. Are you using something like Macs Fan Control to set the temp thresholds? My work room here in Los Angeles gets very hot in the summer (no A/C, just Vornado fans on the floor & a ceiling fan)

Yes, MFC but e.g. iStats or similar would work equally fine.
I'm typing this on another Mac but IINM , i set the PCI fan like : min rpm at 32 Celsius and max rpm 50 Celsius (T of one of the blades) .
I'm quite sure for a MP in LA summer , this would work too, perhaps you may have to tweak a bit the thresholds for your case.
Passively cooled is very nice, but obviously there's no fan controlling T, unless setup to do so.

 

[avro707]

This is how it is on mine.

Slot 1 is the Sonnet (the current version without fans), the RX580 Sapphire 8GB GPU and in slot four is the Titan Ridge 2 thunderbolt card. With this arrangement there are no problems. The blade temperatures always remain cool - it has a pair of Samsung 980 Pro 1TB blades.

The eagle eyed among you will notice the extra cables at the case front and the tape on the rear CPU heatsink. I have a small Noctua fan mounted there to give extra cooling to the Northbridge. My Northbridge temps never go above 60ºC.

I'm in Australia and we are getting towards summer now and warm temperatures.

 

[Fastsavage]

This is how it is on mine.

Slot 1 is the Sonnet (the current version without fans), the RX580 Sapphire 8GB GPU and in slot four is the Titan Ridge 2 thunderbolt card. With this arrangement there are no problems. The blade temperatures always remain cool - it has a pair of Samsung 980 Pro 1TB blades.

The eagle eyed among you will notice the extra cables at the case front and the tape on the rear CPU heatsink. I have a small Noctua fan mounted there to give extra cooling to the Northbridge. My Northbridge temps never go above 60ºC.

I'm in Australia and we are getting towards summer now and warm temperatures.

Hey Arvo,

Do you have a better picture of how your extra fan is mounted?

Is the Tape on the CPU to hold the fan or is that just to redirect airflow?

Cheers

 

[guinesscrowley]

Has anyone here experienced problems using Disk Utility with this card installed? I'm using one 2TB blade as my Mojave OS and the other 3x2TB blades are raided into a 6TB work drive. Since I've added this card I find that Disk Utility hangs when I launch it. More often than not it never really fully launches. Recently I started having a new issue where I lose the ability to scrub picture in Pro Tools sessions. At first the session acts normally and picture will run but if I try to scrub the session the picture will at some point stop following the scrub. Restarting Pro Tools is the only thing that fixes it. If I run the same session on an external Glyph drive connected to a Sonnet USB card the problem does not repeat. My Sonnet M.2 card (fan-less model) is in the bottom slot. My RX580 is above it. Next slot is empty and the top slot is a the Sonnet USB card. Any recommendations for a good app to check the health status of the NVME's? As I've said Disk Utility kind of doesn't work right now.

 

[Ivan Shpak]

Hi I use it without any problems but it looks like they changed the bracket to a new revision

 

[avro707]

Hey Arvo,

Do you have a better picture of how your extra fan is mounted?

Is the Tape on the CPU to hold the fan or is that just to redirect airflow?

Cheers

Sorry Fastsavage,

I totally didn't see your question and then I went and got myself very badly injured so didn't visit here in a long time.

The tape on the CPU cooler is to hold a bit of coat-hanger wire which I bent to go through the screw holes of the little Noctua fan.

The coat hanger wire ends sit against either side of the heatsink and the tape holds it in place. This looks dubious but never moved and the Northbridge temperatures remained below 60ºC. This computer is now not working, possibly a CPU failure which I will try to sort out when I'm better.



The Sonnet card is very tricky to fit in the MP5,1, it only just fits and very securely because of the length.