Apologies. Reading again my previous post, I realized that I wrote the opposite of what I wanted to say at the end of the first paragraph… Should read “you can’t install on it or boot it”…
I also wanted to report that my RPI 5 is still running like a charm and that thinking again at the possible cause, I consider more and more seriously an impact of the WiFi on the SSD. It is really the only change: since the last boot, the WiFi interface is down, without any way to restart it except a reboot that I don’t want to do for the time being (for testing purpose)…
For what is worth, I decided to ask ChatGPT and I got an answer saying it was not completely a crazy idea. My question was: on a rasperry pi 5, could the WiFi have a negative influence on PCIe signals ? Below is an except from the (long) answer:
Why Wi-Fi could affect PCIe
Wi-Fi (2.4 GHz / 5 GHz) and PCIe are very different beasts, but they can still interact indirectly:
EMI (electromagnetic interference)
Wi-Fi radios transmit RF energy. If PCIe traces, cables, or connectors are poorly shielded or routed, that RF noise can couple into the PCIe signals.
High-speed sensitivity
PCIe Gen 2/Gen 3 signals are extremely fast (multi-GHz). They don’t tolerate noise well if:
Signal integrity is already weak
Eye margins are small
There’s impedance mismatch, reflections, or long cables
Ground / power noise
Wi-Fi transmission draws bursty current. If power delivery or grounding is marginal, that noise can show up as jitter on PCIe lanes.
In particular, in my case I use the Geekworm X1001 PCIe HAT which seats on top of the RPI instead of under the RPI with the official HAT. As a result the FCC cable is longer, meaning it is more exposed to signal perturbations from the environment and WiFi may be one of the source of such a disturbance… I have nothing to prove it, just an idea…
At next reboot, I plan to so some tests reactivating the WiFi to see if I can reproduce the unstable sitatution and stop it by disabling it. If it is the case, it is an easy workaroud for me as using an Ethernet cable is not a problem (was just easier with WiFi).