# Pironman 5 NVMe not detected - PCIe stuck at "link down" (Acer FA100)

**URL:** <https://forum.sunfounder.com/t/pironman-5-nvme-not-detected-pcie-stuck-at-link-down-acer-fa100/4993>\
**Category:** General\
**Created:** [September 13, 2026, 11:40pm UTC](https://forum.sunfounder.com/t/pironman-5-nvme-not-detected-pcie-stuck-at-link-down-acer-fa100/4993 "2026-09-13T23:40:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![poshan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/258eb7/32.png) [@poshan](https://forum.sunfounder.com/u/poshan)\
**Post date:** [September 13, 2026, 11:40pm UTC](https://forum.sunfounder.com/t/pironman-5-nvme-not-detected-pcie-stuck-at-link-down-acer-fa100/4993/1 "2026-09-13T23:40:04Z")

</div>

Hardware: Raspberry Pi 5, Pironman 5 case, Acer FA100 256GB NVMe SSD (PCIe Gen3 x4)

Issue: NVMe drive is not detected. lsblk shows only mmcblk0 (SD card), no nvme0n1 at all.

dmesg shows the PCIe bridge for the NVMe side initializing but never linking up:

brcm-pcie 1000110000.pcie: PCI host bridge to bus 0001:00  
pci\_bus 0001:00: root bus resource [bus 00-ff]  
pci\_bus 0001:00: root bus resource [mem 0x1b80000000-0x1bffffffff] (bus address [0x80000000-0xffffffff])  
pci\_bus 0001:00: root bus resource [mem 0x1800000000-0x1b7fffffff pref] (bus address [0x400000000-0x77fffffff])

No further “link up” message and no endpoint device found on that bus.

Troubleshooting already tried:

- Reseated the SSD fully in the M.2 slot, secured with the screw
- Tried both included FPC ribbon cables, same result with each
- Confirmed dtparam=pciex1 not present in config.txt, but PCIe already initializes at boot regardless of this
- Added PCIE\_PROBE=1 to EEPROM config via sudo rpi-eeprom-config --edit, rebooted after
- Ran the official pironman5 install script (v1), completed successfully - fans, OLED, and power button all work correctly
- Re-flashed the SD card fresh (Raspberry Pi OS, latest via Imager) to rule out OS-level issues

None of the above resolved it. PCIe root bridge always initializes fine, but nothing is ever detected downstream on the NVMe side.

Is this likely a compatibility issue with the Acer FA100, or could this indicate a faulty NVMe PIP board? Happy to share full dmesg output or photos of the assembly if that helps troubleshoot further.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![SunFounder\_Moderator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/34f0e0/32.png) [@SunFounder\_Moderator](https://forum.sunfounder.com/u/SunFounder_Moderator)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2026, 9:30am UTC](https://forum.sunfounder.com/t/pironman-5-nvme-not-detected-pcie-stuck-at-link-down-acer-fa100/4993/2 "2026-09-14T09:30:15Z")

</div>

Thanks for the detailed description and for all the troubleshooting you’ve already done.

From your logs, the Pi 5’s PCIe controller is initialized but no link is established with the downstream NVMe, so nvme0n1 never appears. This usually lies between the SSD, the FPC cable, and the NVMe PIP board — not partitioning, formatting, or the Pironman 5 software. Since you’ve already tried two FPC cables and reinstalled the system, we can largely rule out the software side.

To tell whether it’s the SSD or the PIP board, please run two cross-tests (fully power off first):

Install the Acer FA100 into a PC or a USB NVMe enclosure and check if it’s recognized.  
If possible, try another known-good M-Key NVMe SSD in the Pironman 5.  
How to read the results:

FA100 not recognized elsewhere either → the SSD itself is faulty.  
The other SSD works → FA100 is faulty or incompatible.  
FA100 works elsewhere but the other SSD also fails in the Pironman 5 → more likely the PIP board or FPC connector.  
Please also double-check that the FPC cable is firmly seated at both ends and oriented correctly (gold contacts facing the same way as the connector), and whether the PIP module’s PWR LED stays on and the STA LED blinks after power-up.

Finally, please send us:

Clear photos of the SSD installation and both ends of the FPC cable (upload to Google Drive or similar, share the link and enable view access);  
The full output of:  
sudo lspci -nn  
sudo dmesg | grep -Ei “pcie|nvme”  
If the FA100 works in another device and the photos show the wiring is correct, we’ll look further into a hardware issue with the PIP board.