Intel SSD 600p jams system

[KEise]

My Thinkpad T460s uses a Intel SSD 600P Series NVMe M.2 stick.

Since yesterday the stick causes the initialization of the laptop to be

Very slow. To reach the first BIOS string output it takes around 5 minutes. When removing the NVMe stick I can enter BIOS setup as normal.

It feels like the NVMe stick causes the system to jam. Maybe interrupting the CPU or causing DMA on the PCIe bus.

I also tried to boot the NVMe stick inside a Gigabyte BRIX, however while the BIOS screen appears faster entering BIOS menue is not possible because the system hangs again (maybe it continues but very slow)

Is there a possibility to get the NVMe stick working again? What can be the reason for the failure? I cannot update the firmware or examine the NVMe device because a inserted stick jams the system.

[LeonWaksman]

O.K. I didn't understood correctly your post. Yes, probably your SSD failed.

Leon

[KEise]

Question to Intel would then be weather there is a possibility to recover the data from the NAND chips. Maybe there is some recovery mode that can be activated by a resistor or similar... ??

[n_scott_pearson]

No. Your only hope for recovering your data (which should have been backed up; just saying) is to try using a NVMe-to-USB adapter and see if the SSD can be accessed this way.

S​orry, reality bites.

...S

[KEise]

I do have backup of most but not all. The controller chip on the stick labeled "SMI" gets quite hot when inserted and the laptop is trying to boot. Not shure weather this is normal.

I'm almost tempted to connect an oszilloscope to the PCIe serdes pins to see weather the chip is alive or see weather I can get another 600P stick and exchange the SMI controller with a heatgun 🙂 .

Have ordered a "ICY BOX IB-1816M-C31" and a "PCIe adapter card". Lets see how far I can get.

[KEise]

I'm tempted to buy a replacement stick where I would try

to swap the Flash controller using a heatgun to restore my 

failing stick. 

The controller on failing SSD stick is labeled: 

"SMI N07T79.00 S LLUT TW 1636 4D."

There are quite some sticks available with model number

SSDPEKKW512G7 and the same silver shiny SMI controller,

however the labling is different most of the time: i.e. 

"SMI N03X56.00 S LLUT TW 1627 4D" I guess the labling

is production batch specific (?)

On top of that the the 512 GB model SSDPEKKW512G7 is 

quite expensive and my guess is that the controller on a  

SSDPEKKW128G7 with 128 GB is the same?

So question to the SSD part of Intel:

Is the Silicon Motion Flash controller of the  SSDPEKKW128G7

SSD stick the same as the one used on the SSDPEKKW512G7 ?

I want to use a heatgun to heat the SSD sticks from the bottom, 

then use a Kapton take to pull the Flash controller off. Then hope that

the BGA balls supply enough lead still so that I can swap the 

controller chips. Cannot reball.