I found some old mobos could not support nvme SSD launching system even added nvme module in bios. The main reason I think is lacking of the CSM module.
Such as ASUS F1A75-M-CM1740,the mobo owns two kinds of bioses.One is 4MB without csm module,and other is 8MB with csm module.
I had installed Win10 in UEFI mode onto the NVMe SSD. Although two bioses could show "PATA" in the boot list after adding nvme module,8MB bios could launch the system with nvme SSD after adding NVME module(windows boot manager could be showed in the launch list),and 4MB bios didn’t.
Btw,I’ve texted ASUS P8P67 rev3.1 too.bios version 3207 got csm module and nvme is ok after added nvme module,but bios version before 3207（eg:2303）didn’t.
And I found several old mobos had the same problem. I could show you the mobo I had texted and known.I will updated the post when I have texted more.
Be aware of the P67/H67/Q67 of HP/DELL/LENOVO and other Brand computer,they almost have the same problem above.
ASUS F1A55,F1A55-M,F1A55-V,F1A55-M LX,F1A75-M(CM1740) (A55) ASUS P5Q deluxe (P45) (efi beta bios) ASUS M5A97-PRO and so on(970) (including the name of M5A97 mobo and bios file is rom format) ASUS CrosshairV-Formula (990FX) ASUS SABERTOOTH-990FX (990FX)（R2.0 & R3.0 are OK） ASUS P8Q67 (all series) ASUS P8H67-I/P8H67-I-DELUXE/P8H67-I-DELUXE ASUS P8H67-M2/P8H67-M-LE/P8H67-M-LX MSI P45 Platinum(P45)(efi beta bios) BIOSTAR TA990FXE (990fx) TA970XE (970) LENOVO K330（CIP67M）(P67)（OEM by MSI,So Flashing MSI P67 forcibly may be OK) LENOVO M8320T（IS6XM）(Q65/Q67) LENOVO T4900D (IH61MA) (H61) (the bios version is F9KT47AUS,it may work unless you can find the bios version newer than that I mention.) LENOVO IH61M V1.0 (h61) SOYO SY-I6H-L V1.0&V2.0（H61） SOYO SY-I6H-G（H61） SAMSUNG P67M01S1 (P67) (very old uefi bios but could be flashed into FOXCONN P67 bios and get something new) ACER Q67H2-AM2 (Q67) (including the name of Q67H2 mobo of other brand as with Founder,and they are all OEM by ECS) DELL Vostro 260s/Inspiron 620/OptiPlex 390 (h61) (they are the same mobo) DELL T1600(C206) ONDA A55N (A55) (all series)
update :01/07/2020
Edit:10/18/2019 Recently I found some mobo which didn’t have CSM module but could show the "windows boot manager" and launch the system.Such as ASUS F1A55-M LX PLUS.But ASUS F1A55-M LX still failed.The bios of ASUS F1A55-M LX PLUS released in 2014 and was described "Enhance compatibility with some PCI-E device". So I think something interesting below: 1.It was feasible that modding the bios of the mobos which didn’t had the CSM module could let them support NVME SSD to launch the system.But "how to mod?" had been a new question. 2.CSM module was absolutely the evidence of supporting NVME SSD to launch the system.
Edit by Fernando (11/09/2021): Thread title customized and shortened
I have no real input on this, but I do wonder about the reasoning you mentioned, if no CSM doesn’t that only mean you can only install one way (Secure if all set to UEFI/EFI) or legacy if all only set to that?
Good idea for this list I’ve never heard of such issues, but I don’t have NVME to check anything like that out even if I do have a board on your list once done.
@Lost_N_BIOS If possible,I wonder how to transplant it to the bios without csm module.That will save many boards life. ASUS P8P67 rev3.1 is the best target I think.It owns 2 kinds of bioses (with and without CSM module) that are all 4MB size.
CSM means Compatibility Support Module and is the place where ‘true’ UEFI bios have their legacy rom files so that the boards can be booted in legacy mode. Since NVMe support added via the EFI drivers provided here is an ‘UEFI- only’ thing the existence of the CSM isn’t relevant for booting in UEFI mode.
Tha fact that your bios files with CSM are larger and described on the web- page as “Windows 8 ready” suggests that the earlier (smaller) versions were not completely UEFI compliant and that’s possibly the reason why the simple addition of the NVMe module doesn’t work.
Regarding “That will save many boards life”- you wouldn’t feel any perceivable difference between a SSD connected to your 6Gb/s SATA port and an NVMe SSD, especially since this chipset (and most chipsets of this time) don’t support PCIe Gen3, but only PCIe Gen2. So you’d be limited to Gen2 x4, means ~1600 MB/s sequential read. The rest anyway not too far from the results of a SATA Gen3 SSD.
@gloobox : I agree with lfb6: The CSM settings within the BIOS (available/not available - enabled/disabled) are not relevant for the ability to get an NVMe SSD bootable. Absolutely required is only the ability of the BIOS to get the inserted NVMe EFI module loaded while booting.
@lfb6 : You are right regarding your remark, that the “normal user”, who doesn’t often work with very big sized files, may not recognize the performance difference between a SATA SSD, which is connected to a SATA3 port, and an NVMe SSD, which is connected to a PCIe Gen2 slot, but Sequential Read values of 1600 MB/s are much better than 520 MB/s.
I agree with your piont about "earlier (smaller) versions were not completely UEFI compliant ",those bioses even don’t support new vga card(GTX10xx series) because they don’t own efi GOP module.
The Efi driver/ Gop Module for separate graphic cards is located in the graphic cards bios, not in the UEFI firmware of the mainboard. [Link]
It’s not completely clear what you mean- you should be able to boot in UEFI mode with CSM enabled, meaning that the graphic cards legacy bios will be used for booting. Only if you disable CSM and try to enable secure boot the system bios will look for an EFI GOP module in the graphic cards bios.
Both bios you linked do have a CSMCORE module- look at the GUID A062CF1F-8473-4AA3-8793-600BC4FFE9A8 in the UBU scan, in addition you can easily find those modules using UEFItool_NE. The 8MB bios does in addition (among other changes) have an EFI GOP driver for AMD processor(?) graphics, what would be one of the conditions for secure boot.
Scanning BIOS file F1A75-M-ASUS-CM1740-0901.ROM. Please wait… BIOS platform - AMI Aptio 4 BIOS version - 0901 Manufacturer - ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. Model - F1A75-M
[OROM - Find and Extract] VBIOS in GUID A062CF1F-8473-4AA3-8793-600BC4FFE9A8 OROM in GUID A062CF1F-8473-4AA3-8793-600BC4FFE9A8 Press any key to continue . . . Main Menu [Current version in BIOS file] 1 - Disk Controller EFI AMD RAID - 1.0.0.17 OROM AMD RAID MISC 7802 - 3.2.1540.45 2 - Video OnBoard OROM AMD VBIOS - 012.043.000.014.000000 3 - Network OROM QCM-Atheros PXE - 2.0.2.7 4 - Other SATA Controller 5 - CPU MicroCode View/Extract/Search/Replace S - AMI Setup IFR Extractor 0 - Exit RS - Re-Scanning A - About Choice:
Scanning BIOS file F1A75-M-ASUS-CM1740-8-0508.CAP. Please wait… BIOS platform - AMI Aptio 4 BIOS version - 0508 Manufacturer - ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. Model - F1A75-M
Insert this, if it’s working you done, else, replace the PE section with any other NVME driver available or modify the dependency section with the required pointer.
@noInk Thanks your file~!!! I had tried to insert it,mmtool would warn that it had the same guid when I had inserted the "NvmExpressDxe_4.ffs" or "NvmExpressDxe_Small.ffs" first.So I just inserted the file you gave me. But after flashing,it only showed "pata" too,but missing the "windows boot manager".
@Fernando@Lost_N_BIOS@lfb6@noInk Today I bought an 8MB bios chips and flashed the ASUS F1A75-M-CM1740 8MB bios file,and replaced the original 4MB bios chip with 8MB chip. And finally the mobo ASUS F1A75-M-CM1740 could show the "windows boot manager" and launch the system with NVME !!! It seems that the mobo is almost the same,but the bios chip is different. Very lucky~
I have a Intel DP45SG motherboard, it’s interesting that it has EFI support built-in.
I’ve tried installing Windows Vista in EFI mode, but I found that the only way Windows setup allow me to install on harddisk is to set disk mode to IDE in BIOS. If I set disk mode to AHCI in bios, the Windows setup just cannot find any disks and/or do not allow me to install.
That’s kind of sad though, because IDE mode lack some function and is not so fast. I don’t know why would this problem happen, do you experts know about that? Would it because the EFI firmware lack something like “AHCI EFI driver”? Or I need special F6 driver to be loaded during installation of Windows?
Thank you so much!
P.S. I asked one of my friends and he said seems some P45 motherboard with EFI support such as MSI P45D3 Plantium has same problem, I am not sure.
@donaviamoris Welcome to the win-raid forum!!! Have you ever tried to flash the modded bios and succeeded to launch the system with NVME SSD in this mobos?
Nobody sees the "Windows Boot Manager" within the BIOS right after the flash of an NVMe modded BIOS, but the BIOS boot option "Windows Boot Manager" will be visible after having installed Win10 in UEFI mode onto the NVMe SSD.
@Fernando But BIOS boot option “Windows Boot Manager” will NOT be visible after having installed Win10 in UEFI mode onto the NVMe SSD in some MOBOs which I memtioned in the first post.
I agree with his opinion @lfb6 that these mobos’s bioses were not completely UEFI compliant.
@gloobox : It may be possible, that some of the first mainboards with an UEFI BIOS don’t fully support booting in UEFI mode, but in this case it is a mistake done by the mainboard manufacturer while compiling the BIOS.
Ok, but then your following statement was absolutely misleading:
By the way: I have never written, that a BIOS module named "CSMCORE" is absolutely required for being able to get full NVMe support. Within my guide I have given the advice to search for that module, because 1. nearly all AMI UEFI BIOSes contain a module named "CSMCORE" and 2. some AMI UEFI BIOSes contain more than 1 "DXE Driver Volume", but the BIOS module named "CSMCORE is always within the one, where the NVMe module has to be inserted.
I’ve never heard of such issues, but I don’t have NVME to check anything like that out even if I do have a board on your list once done.
