Not 100% sure about my skills, so can anyone please help and mod this BIOS for NVMe support. Thank You. =]]]
Since this board has Dual-bios to recover from a fail, ill provide you the bios mod with the NVMe DXE5 module inserted.
As usual all files provided, its a user own choice to flash it or not, myself and the forum are not responsible for fail results leading to bricked motherboards.
Flashed by Q-FLASH only, not OS environment.
Do please provide feedback, for future forum users guidance.
H77MD3H.F14_r1.0_nvme5std_Lang.rar (3.6 MB)
NVME Windows setup guidance by Fernando’s guide:
Good luck.
EDIT: Update on 27-08-2023, besides the initial success report on the folling post, seems that a more recent user had an issue with this mod, please read post #7 and you may use the alternative file linked.
Thank You!!! =]]]
Works great, read and write speeds are more than 1500MB/s.
I’m very happy.
Glad that all went ok.
Thank you for your report, enjoy it.
I used the above modded bios to successfully flash my Gigabyte GA-H77M-D3H (rev. 1.0) and installed the pcie nvme adapter on the 2nd PCIE x16 slot (manual said that this PCIE slot will operate at PCIE2) and the benchmarked speed is around 1,500MB/s which is the actual (real world) limit for PCIE2 (theoretical limit for PCIE2 is 2,000MB/s).
But I ran into a big problem. When I installed a Nvidia 1660s GPU on the first PCIE3 x16 slot, Win 10 will not post (not even to bios). When I unplug the GPU, it will then boot into Win 10 successfully. At first I thought it might be that I initially cloned my Win 10 install from a previous install on a HDD, but I did do a clean install Win 10 afterwards to make sure that wasn’t the problem. If I manage it boot it successfully with the GPU & its drivers installed (it will randomly be able to post but rarely), it will hold if I just restart (reboot) the system, but it will fail and not post once I shutdown (power-off) the system and try to power-up next time.
I fiddled with different settings in the bios to no avail. Tried installing only pure drivers only without the Geforce Experience portion. I even installed Win 11 to see if that was a solution. Finally, to cut this short, I finally was able to get a stable boot with the 1660s & Nvidia drivers installed and it was by using another modded Gigabyte GA-H77M-D3H bios found on this forum in a August 2018 post by Kvicala at [HowTo] Get full NVMe Support for all Systems with an AMI UEFI BIOS
In Kvicala’s post will be a link to the modded bios. Inside the zip file, there are actually 2 modded bios, one with the name of “by FULL” and “by small”, but with no explaination of the differences in the info.txt supplied within. I tried the “by FULL” one and was successful in using that to get a stable boot with my 1660s GPU with the Nvidia drivers installed. Hope this helps will save someone down the line a lot of time.
@peo Welcome to the Win-Raid Forum!
Since I cannot get access to the original zip file, which had been linked by Kvicala, it would be fine, if you re-attach it. Then I will try to find out the difference between the “full” and the “small” BIOS modding variant.
Enjoy the Forum!
Dieter (alias Fernando)
I am also curious about the difference between the modded bios provided by the above MeatWar vs. the one by Kvicala (the “by FULL” bios that I am currently using). As the MeatWar modded bios was the one I first used that had problem described in my 1st post about causing my system not to post successfully (most of the time) when a discreet GPU and its drivers were installed. Worked fine though if the PCIE to NVME adapter and the NVME drive was used alone.
Would appreciated if you are able to find anything about it!
I am a new user so I cannot directly upload file yet, so I uploaded the Kvicala modded bios to my Google drive:
Kvicala Modded Bios Download Link
Let me know if you have any problems downloading it.
The mod has the standard DXE5 nvme module and the tool used was MMtool… this was the only thing added, what may differ from the other user mod is that i removed additional LANG code strings besides EN in order to get more space on the bios volume.
Since the user Shkunarito reported it as successful, no further actions from my part were made.
What model was or even if he has a dedicated GPU…we dont know as he didnt reported it.
If you used another language in bios besides EN, then a cold cmos/spi reset had to be made before booting the new flashed mod.
Since we have now a draw (+1 -1) in user reports from my file and the issue is not correctly identified, ill leave it still posted for further reports.
For the bios language, I used EN.
As you have mentioned, to get the computer to post successfully when even after removing the discreet GPU (it will then usually post, but at times, it will not post). But when that happens, I did notice if I clear the CMOS (removing and putting back the CMOS battery), it will usually then post (not sure if worked everytime though).
As I have mentioned in previous posts, the problem was when I actually got the whole thing working (meaning with the discreet GPU & its drivers installed as well), it will last though restart (reboot) of the system but if I shutdown the system, the next power-on will not post.
Humm… you may have a NVRAM or hw SPI/CMOS circuit issue, thats very erratic behaviour from the motherboard.
So as i said before the mod will stay posted for now, because if you have issue on your side, we cant point fault to the mod, after an initial report of success.
I wish i had another reported from another user… we’ll have to wait.
All the best and good luck.
EDIT: I see, so your report will be noted on using Kvicala’s mod, for stability and no issue to report, thank you.
Your mod works really well if you are not running a discreet GPU along with the NVME. I think for anyone not needing to run a discreet GPU as well, it will be fine.
But with Kvicala’s mod, everything so far is working together even after shutdowns, which is strange if my board have a NVRAM or hw SPI/CMOS circuit issue, but then again, I don’t have the technical ability to rule that out as well.
I’m using this moded BIOS with i5-3470 and GTX 1050. Still no problems, works perfectly fine, everytime 100% sucsessful post. GPU in first x16 slot, NVMe in second x8 slot.
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Glad that MeatWar’s modded bios worked out for you but makes this more of a puzzler as I am using the same CPU as you and also a Nvidia GPU (GTX 1660s), but had posting problems (but no problems after switching to Kvicala’s mod).
I have tried so many combinations with clones disk installs and also eventually clean installs of win 10 and win 11. Also with base Nvidia drivers (no Geforce Experience) and full Geforce Experience installs. Also tried reflashing Meatwar’s modded bios a 2nd time after restoring back to original bios.
Couple things that I didn’t try are flipping the slot order of GPU and NVMe, and trying a different brand or model of PCIE NVMe adapter (I didn’t have a different one on hand to test with).
BTW, in your post at the end, I am assuming you meant the 2nd PCI Express x16 slot (and it is actually running at x4 and at PCIE2 standards) as indicated in our motherboard manual and confirmed in HWinfo.
But to emphasize again, when flashed with Meatwar’s modded bios, when running without the 1660s gpu, just with the NVMe alone in the 2nd PCIE x16 slot, it ran perfect and had no posting issues and at the speed capable of that slot.