Hi All,
First of all, thank you for the above guide. I’m now typing this message on a laptop with a supported NVMe drive!
Unfortunately, performance is a lot slower than expected (seq. read around 400mb/s. Whereas 2600mb/s advertised). I have followed other guide in this forum on optimising speed but the only reason I can think for this drastic reduction is my bios is still using the SATA controller rather than the SSD onboard controller. Is it possible to mod bios further to enable (or disable!) the controller and allow the drive to use PCIe? (or am I thinking about this all wrong?)
Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks again.
Paul
Laptop spec - Razer blade 2015, i7-4720HQ (I think this is the problem!), American megatrends bios (but named Razer 3.15 in sysinfo)
@paulflano
I couldn’t find any information regarding the M.2 interface on your Razer, but based on what little information I found, I would say it’s connected to the SATA bus, not the PCIe bus. If so, there’s no way to change it to the PCIe bus, as that’s determined by the pathways/traces on the motherboard. All you can do is check forums where others have tried the same thing.
@paulflano :
Welcome to the Win-RAID Forum!
I am afraid, that Paulos7 is right and that we are not able to solve your specific PCIe connection problem.
Another option is to contact the Razer Support and ask there for help.
Good luck!
Dieter (alias Fernando)
@Paulos7 @Fernando
Hi guys, thanks for the quick response and doing some digging in my setup. I’ve had alot of trouble finding info on this laptop too! I’ve been researching on Razer but unfortunately they don’t realise bios updates.i will contact direct on support for NVMe for older mainboards.
As a general question, and perhaps this is something in relation more modern mainboards (mine being 3 years old at this point) but I thought m.2 ports could use either SATA or NVMe bus depending on what drive is inserted (see link below)? m.2 connection having only one slot (physical notch) while m.2 SATA only slots have 2 notches to ensure no NVMe drives are inserted to the board. (Albiet, physical connection to the board doesn’t mean the hardware or bios software is there to support it I suppose!)
I will keep digging as well and see if anyone has had success, thanks for the input!
http://www.dell.com/support/article/ie/e…ell-pc-?lang=en
@paulflano :
Which SSD model has been within your Razer laptop from scratch and whch NVMe SSD model did you insert instead?
@Fernando
Originally a Lite-ON L9G M.2 SATA was installed and I’ve replaced with a Toshiba XG3 M.2 (A.K.A OCZ RD400 NVMe) Drive. Apologies I should have spec’d this in my first post.
I feel there are two possible situations with my setup -
One being the SATA controller is hardwired to the M.2 port and all controls are done on this motherboard controller. Hence my speed being limited to 400mb/s or the usual 10 SATA lanes. But this begs the question why the motherboard manufacturer included an NVMe capable slot.
Second, (and i’m hoping this is the case) my bios is not deactivating the SATA controller which is not allowing the on-ssd NVMe controller to be used via PCIe.
Would you guys picture this could be the case or am I confusing the operation between the board and ssd?
Thanks,
Paul
@paulflano
My understanding of the M.2 interface is that it can be used for both NVMe and SATA, but not necessarily both. Check the Wikipedia article on M.2, which is where the statement below is from.
"Computer bus interfaces provided through the M.2 connector are PCI Express 3.0 (up to four lanes), Serial ATA 3.0, and USB 3.0 (a single logical port for each of the latter two). It is up to the manufacturer of the M.2 host or device to select which interfaces are to be supported, depending on the desired level of host support and device type".
From what I found it appears that the 2016 Razer may have NVMe support, but not the older 2015. Razer clearly does not like giving much, if any, information on their laptops other than their basic features. Have you attempted to ask them regarding NVMe support on your laptop?
Hi @Paulos7
I’ve left a message with razor support, still waiting on a reply. I think you are correct though - the decision is all on the manufacturer as to what features have been included. Obviously NVMe wasn’t on Razers feature list at the time - as you indicated the newer 2016 laptop has NVMe support.
Hopefully I can figure out if it is a hardware or software limitation. Will keep you posted if I get a response!
Best,
Paul
@paulflano :
JFYI: My recently bought Xiaomi notebook has 2 M.2 ports, only 1 of them was natively connected to a 250 GB Samsung PM961, which is an NVMe SSD, used as system drive and managed by the Samsung NVMe Controller. The other M.2 was free, but is definitively only usable with a SATA M.2 SSD. Meanwhile I inserted into the free M.2 port a 250 GB Samsung 950 EVO M.2 SSD, which is managed by the on-bord Intel SATA Controller and running fine as .
This indicates, that the on-board M.2 ports of mobile systems cannot be connected with any M.2 SSD no matter which interface it uses (NVMe or SATA).
The Lite-ON L9G SSD uses the SATA interface (6GB/s). So the M.2 port of your seems to be designed for SATA SSDs and not NVMe ones.
Question: Which Controller manages your Toshiba XG3 now? Is the NVMe Controller listed within the “Storage Controllers” section of your Device Manager?
hi guys,
as the title says im having a lot of problem with the installation and the usage of S960 EVO as main drive on my crosshair MOBO. im a kind of noob on this things so i really love is u can help me step by step. Anyway till now i did a copy of my OS on my S960 with Samsung Data Migration and im using the ULTIMATE MODDED BIOS posted by Stickmode in his thread but when i restart the PC it saw the SSD as Pata SS on BIOS menu but on dark screen it says " Insert a bootable device and restar ".
My current System:
MB: ASUS Crosshair Formula -Z, CPU: AMD FX8350 BE, Disk Drives: WD WD20EZRX Green 2 TB Samsung 960 EVO SSD 250 GB, Graphics: Nvidia GTX 760 ASUS, OS: Win10 Pro x64
sorry if im posting on a wrong tab this is my first post.
@Sax3 :
Welcome to the Win-RAID Forum!
I have moved your post into this already existing thread, because you will find within the start post some information, which will help you. Look into the chapter “Installation of the OS onto the NVMe SSD”.
Your problem is caused by the fact, that your previously used system drive hasn’t been an NVMe SSD. Consequence: The bootsector of your cloned system drive doesn’t know anything about your new NVMe SSD and its NVMe Controller.
That is one of the reasons why I generally recommend to do a fresh OS installation, if the user wants to change the system disk drive model and its interface (here: AHCI > NVMe).
My tip:
1. Create a bootable Win10 USB stick by using the tool Rufus. >Here< is an easy to understand step-by-step guide.
2. Make a backup of your important data.
3. Unplug all HDDs/SSDs except the new NVMe SSD.
4. Choose the required BIOS settings according to my guide (= start post of this thread).
5. Boot off the created Win10 USB stick in UEFI mode.
6. If the target system drive contains already partitions, let the OS Setup delete them all and create a new partition for your “clean” OS install.
7. Let the Win10 Setup install the OS onto the just created new partition.
8. Once the OS is completely installed, run “Windows Update” and install all available Hotfixes, Cumulative Updates ad Driver Updates.
9. Reconnect your other HDDs/SSDs.
Good luck!
Dieter (alias Fernando)
I’m happy new user of Samsung 960 EVO 1TB. My mobo is P67 Extreme4. BIOS version 3.21a. Used uncompressed NvmExpressDxE_3 module
and cheap m.2 adapter. The SSD is in the last PCIe slot on my mobo (it is PCIe2.0 x4). I cloned my system from the old SSD (MBR) to the new (GPT).
Didn’t disabled raid, nor fast boot. My system now booting lighting fast. After power on, it takes few seconds to speed up the fans and HDDs
and just after another 2-3 seconds I see the desktop.
Thank you Fernando!
@sax3
If you get with your favorite OS (W10 in my case) Migration Tools a “unaccessible Boot device” problem may be you can have a look on my post in Special Topics, Special Win7/Win8/Win10, W10 Migration.
(ALL the tested Migration Tools on the market does produce the same issue: Samsung Migration Tool, AOMEI PA PRO, AOMEI Backupper PRO, Ease US PA PRO, PARAGON HDM16 Advanced, PARAGON BR16, PARAGON OS SSD Migration Tool, Acronis 2018, MiniTool PA PRO).
As said Fernando a fresh OS install is a preferable method, however when you have 200+ applications to re install and activate them from fresh with all security usual keys controls it does take several days…
That should be no surprise and is absolutely no issue of the related backup tools.
It is vice versa: The “Inaccessible BOOT Device” message is the proof, that the related backup tool has done perfectly its job and have created a clone, which is absolutely identical with the source - inclusive the boot sector resp. the “Windows Boot Manager”, which contains the information about the previously used
a) system disk drive (HDD/SSD model),
b) data transfer interface (SATA AHCI, SATA RAID or NVMe) and
c) Storage Controller and its specific storage driver, which have managed the access to the (formerly used) system drive.
@Fernando
Depending of the ‘Backup’ Tools manufacturer available on the market and their respective version (Free or Pro) they do offer a set of “OS Migration Tools” with different options to allow different possible migration scenarios.
Depending of the migration scenario and the available additional tools and capabilities (Universal Restore, Boot Corrector, etc.) sometimes they do succeed automatically to get the new media bootable into the new hardware environment, sometimes they don’t.
Are we allowed to post BIOS modding requests here? I briefly looked at the first post, and I have a strong feeling I shouldn’t attempt doing this myself.
@Octopuss :
We generally do not modify BIOSes upon request, but we are trying to help, if anyone has a problem while doing it or wants to have a feedback regarding his work before he/she is going to flash the modded BIOS.
Hello all,
Two Questions please:
1)Does anyone has a WORKING modified BIOS for Asus Sabertooth X79 motherboard? If so, can i download it from somewhere?
2)The process is showing in 1st page seems quite easy to follow with my current asus sabertooth x79 '(ver 4801 bios). Will it work finally? I read that CSM must be disabled. Searching around in google for this onto other forums seen that this must be enabled and storage priority is uefi first.
Thanks in advance.
Regards,
Manos
@Manos_K :
Hello Manos,
welcome to the Win-RAID Forum!
Good look! Unfortunatetly nobody has yet offered such already NVMe modded ASUS Sabertooth X79 BIOS within >this< Sub-Forum.
I am pretty sure, that it will work.
This is not true. The CSM setting can be enabled or disabled, but if CSM has been ENABLED, you have to make sure, that you can boot in UEFI mode. Otherwise your NVMe SSD will not be bootable.
Regards
Dieter (alias Fernando)