928-Fatal PCIe error PCIe Surprise Link Down error detected on Slot 0

[jkz6g4]

My machine is a HP Z6 G4 Workstation running Windows 11 Pro.

About a week ago, I cloned my primary M.2 NVMe drive (512 GB, OEM) to a 4TB Samsung 990 Pro.  This is the drive running Windows.  I didn't notice any issue for one week but I didn't keep the PC on for longer than 8 hours at a time.

Then one day, I got a black screen saying "BootDevice Not Found. Please install an operating system on your hard disk".

I updated my firmware to the latest firmware from HP without issue.  It was running an old firmware from 2019.  The "BootDevice Not Found" error is gone but then I am seeing a new "928-Fatal PCIe error PCIe Surprise Link Down error detected on Slot 0" every few hours (it doesn't matter whether I am using the PC or when it's idle).

According to the HP Z6 G4 spec / manual, Slot 0 is supposed to be mechanical (I have nothing there because I don't have a second CPU).  Could Slot 0 be referring to the primary M.2 slot instead of the mechanical slot?

Reference on Slot 0: Page 6 of HP Z6 G4 spec / manual https://www8.hp.com/h20195/v2/getpdf.aspx/c05527761.pdf

I tried updating my graphics card driver but that didn't solve the issue.  The graphics card is on slot 2.  I had zero issue with the RTX 2070 super for a few years and it has always been in that slot.

I have no other cards in any other PCIe expansion slots.

I also tried setting the BIOS for the m.2 slot speed limit from  'Auto' to 'Gen3' but that didn't help.  The Samsung 990 Pro supports Gen4 I think but *should* be backward compatible.

What else should I try?  This is my only PC and need to get it fixed soon.

[DGroves]

please use this forums "SEARCH" feature and you will have some possible solutions to your error

on a side note i'm still amazed that 99.8% of users simply ignore/refuse this very useful search feature and possibly get a immediate solution or helpful answers right away

[jkz6g4]

I tried.  Reseated the new m 2 drive but still get the same error after a few hours.  

[DGroves]

i don't think you actually FULLY read the posts on this subject as they plainly state that FAILING HARDWARE can cause this error, in other words remove your M.2 SSD

it's also remotely possible for a bad OS image install to corrupt the installed OS try a clean OS reinstall