[HowTo] Get full NVMe Support for all Systems with an AMI UEFI BIOS

hi,
i have an ASUS P8Z68-V PRO motherboard and SAMSUNG 850 EVO and I5 2500K OC 4.6GHZ
i want to buy a SAMSUNG 970 EVO and M2 adapter for it
i have used UEFI Tool and modded my bios to add NVME.
can any expert check my bios if it is correct or not before flashing?
http://www.mediafire.com/file/vqmai35926gjpvw/P6P.ROM/file

@Lost_N_BIOS
Iā€™m sure you are aware that motherboards donā€™t usually get BIOS updates for more than a couple of years after they are released. The last non-beta BIOS for this motherboard was released back in 2013 (the motherboard was released in 2012). Asrock released a beta BIOS back in May 2018, and it appears that the only reason was CPU microcode updates for Spectre/Meltdown. If you want NVMe support for these older Asrock motherboards you usually have to contact their tech support, and they will e-mail the BIOS to you if they have one (unless, of course, you find the resources to mod the BIOS yourself; e.g. Fernandoā€™s Guide). That is how I got versions P1.90A and P1.70F (and these particular BIOS updates were not even available through Asrock US or Asrock Europe). They still are not available for download on the Asrock website(s); so it appears that these rare/custom BIOS updates are only available to those that specifically ask for them. That is why I said that these two BIOSā€™ only had NVMe support (P1.70F), and NVMe and Spectre/Meltdown mitigations (P1.90A). So, it is doubtful (IMO) that there are other minor updates to these BIOSā€™, since they have not been officially released (but, I could be wrong).

@Lost_N_BIOS
I guess I mistakenly believed that the Spectre/Meltdown mitigations were updated by updating ME. When I updated my BIOS with that P1.90A BIOS from Asrock I could swear that it updated ME first and then the BIOS. How can I tell if that BIOS has an ME update with it, or does it not work that way? Would the Spectre/Meltdown mitigations update the CPU just prior to updating the BIOS?

Hi,

I have a Gigabyte GA-H97-Gaming 3 REV. 1.1 motherboard with a built in M.2 connector. I have purchased a Samsung 970 EVO 500gb M.2 SSD and want to boot Win 10 from it.
I have been unable to see the 970 EVO in the Bios, the drive does not appear in Win 10, and is not shown in the drive selection window when installing Win 10 (all other drives were disconnected).
I followed Fernandoā€™s guide and using AMIā€™s MMTool V5.2.0.24, installed the full NvmExpressDxe_4.ffs into my H97G3.F7 BIOS, and then flashed it onto my motherboard.
Unfortunately, I still canā€™t see the 970 EVO in the BIOS or Win 10.
I have uploaded my modified BIOS to http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?filā€¦888193644173992
The original BIOS is here http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?filā€¦783069856453909
Can you suggest what I have missed?
Thanks

@mido_hamdy :
Welcome to the Win-RAID Forum!
Your modded BIOS looks fine. The insertion of the NVMe module has been done perfectly.
Good luck!
Dieter (alias Fernando)

@Paulos7 - yes I know how BIOS updates get rolled out, and since that one has been so long Iā€™m sure they had a long list of bugs in a log-file which they probably only fixed half of when releasing that recent update + addressed Spectre/Meltdown.
And yes, that could have updated ME too, if they wanted, it adds security fixes as well, but is separate and has nothing to do with microcode updates that cause the concerns everyone has with the spectre/meltdown fixes. You can update/downgrade either separately to anything you want.

You can check if BIOS contains ME by dropping it in UEFITool or ME Analyzer, compare new and old and youā€™ll have your answer (also check current ME version in BIOS Main page or HWINfo64, because even if ME update in BIOS that does not always mean itā€™s flashed in during update)

@AB11 - move PATA SS or whatever the BIOS calls the NVME now into top of spot at HDD BBS setting submenu

@AB11 :
Welcome to the Win-RAID Forum!
I have checked the linked original BIOS and found, that it natively supports NVMe (as all latest BIOSes for mainboards with an Intel 9-Series chipset).
So there was neither a need to insert any additional NVMe module nor makes it any sense.

I suspect, that you either havenā€™t done the required BIOS settings (look into my guide within the start post) or didnā€™t do a fresh install of Win10 in UEFI mode onto your NVMe SSD.
Regards
Dieter (alias Fernando)

@Lost_N_BIOS :
Nobody is able to boot off a drive named ā€œPATA SSā€, because an NVMe SSD with such name is not bootable in LEGACY mode.

Thanks @Fernando -Iā€™ve never used so only try to remember advices from others. My main goal was to get him to look into the HDD BBS page, often if more than one drive is connected the main one you want wont be shown and many users donā€™t know to look there to move drives around to then make the selectable/present on the HDD priority list on root page that contains the BBS subsection/setting. How would it show up on the BBS Page, nothing at all?

Thanks Fernando for your quick reply.
The Gigabyte GA-H97-Gaming 3 refuses to recognise that the 970 EVO is attached.
I think that I will have to try to find newer versions of the Nvme, NvmeSmm and NvmeInt13 files and flash them onto the motherboard and see if it works

@KCaswell btw. you can see the PCIe transfer mode with a small tool CrystalDiskInfo

PCIeMode.jpg

Since the latest BIOSes of all Intel 9-Series Chipset mainboards natively do fully support booting off an NVMe SSD in UEFI mode, it should be shown with its real model name. Nevertheless it is not possible to boot off it, unless the chosen device name has an ā€œ[UEFI]ā€ prefix.

Where and how did you attach the NVMe SSD?
Are you sure, that the related PCIe/M.2 port is enabled within the BIOS and usable (not blocked by any other connected Disk Drive)?

That will not solve the problem.

Here are my values with Samsung 970EVO:

Benchmark results.png

@TunaK :
So you obviously finally got everyting working as expected - congratulations! What was the trick?

The image hasnā€™t been uploaded resp. inserted correctly. I will do it for you.

EDIT: Done!

Thanks so much for your help
Happy new year

@Fernando :
Not really, Im still fighting against the USB Power Error, more you can see here ā†’ [Guide] How to get full NVMe support for all Systems with an AMI UEFI BIOS (264)

I made the Speedtests with my keyboard and mouse connected to USB 2.0 ports. Then I put the NMVe adapter card into a slower PCIe 2.0x1 port and it looks like the Error is gone but the Speed drops down to SATA values. This Is not a solution.

During the fresh W10 installation I wondered, that the W10 installation was not able to install to 970EVO without additional drivers /Samsung NVMe driver v3.0.0.1802 WHQL for Win10 x64/. The disk was visible, but the installation was not able to create a partition even when I was able to create a partition manually with the installation options.

@Paulos7 :
Thank you for your reply. I have a Sandy Bridge CPU so this is probably the issue - nevermind!

Thanks again

EDIT by Fernando: Unneeded fully quoted post replaced by directly addressing (to save space)

@Fernando
May I ask you to modify for me an older BIOS, because of pad files issues. I will test the 970EVO with the older BIOS version to see if I will have the USB power issues.

Here is a version I have used before the BIOS modd.
https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/LGā€¦O-ASUS-1504.zip

THX

@TunaK :
This is the error message I get, when I follow your link:

Error message.png

@Fernando
Yep, something is wrong with that link.
Try this please: https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/Z87PRO/HelpDesk_BIOS/ version 1504 is 9th from the top of the list

@TunaK :
Attached is the requested BIOS.
Good luck!

Z87-PRO-ASUS-1504-modbyfernando.rar (4.66 MB)