Hello All! I Just Discovered this awesome forum following my desire to upgrade my system with a PCIe SSD to boot win10pro from it while hitting the bump of my somewhat dated main-board.
I read all your excellent guides and following your detailed instructions, i managed not only to add the NVME support from an other thread here, but i also heated up to modify and upgrade all bios module drivers, ME, LAN, RSTe, Marvel and CPU microcode. And successfully flash it to the main-board without any immediate problems (or problems that i can immediately understand) whatsoever. System running stable with the below configuration (signature).
I am posting the F20 bios as i extracted it from motherboard and then the modded one that i flashed in the main-board. Can you please tell me if the driver versions i choose are the best options for my specific main-board and chip-set? or should i choose to remod with more optimized ones (different driver module versions)? I read a lot your threads here and given that i am not so far advanced, i am at a little loss. Any help-opinion will be greatly appreciated.
This was the unmodified Bios F20:
And this is the Modified With ME,Clover NVME,LAN PXE & EFI ,RSTe OROM & EFI ,MARVEL SATA , CPU Microcode Update:
I hope the various device versions used are ok but i would like an opinion for all, My main concern is with the RSTe OROM And EFI Versions: Are those the right ones for the chipset or can i use v4.5 for IRSTe? which one for best optimized performance? On RST v15 is ok or should i downgrade? and to which one version for best optimized performance?
And Finally given the version that will be finally used for bios driver modules, which software versions of IME and IRSTe are best paired with the module versions for optimal performance and stability on this board-chipset?
Thanks in advance! Grate Job you are doing here hope i had discovered you earlier!!
Since your on-board Intel SATA Controller obviously is running in AHCI mode, the versions of the Intel RAID ROM/EFI modules of the BIOS don’t matter, because they will not be used by the system. If you are not sure, whether you will switch the SATA mode one day to “RAID”, I recommend to insert the Intel RAID ROM/EFI RaidDriver v13.1.0.2126, which matches the best the Intel RST(e) RAID driver v13.1.0.1058 WHQL. If you want to know which Intel RST/RST(e) AHCI/RAID drivers I recommend to use with your X79 chipset system, please have a look into the start post of >this< thread. At the bottom is a table with the “best” drivers for your X79 chipset. For your chipset I do not recommend to use any Intel AHCI or RAID driver and no Intel RAID BIOS module, which belongs to the RST(e) v14 or v15 platform.
You are Right, I Fail to mention that in my plans I am considering the option to have another 850 pro for raid0 as work drive for my sound-video editing (large files and database) and the nvme for boot,apps and a few games. (By the way, After a lot of testing and bios settings tweaking, Nvme boot works like a charm and giving exelent results with anvil after implementing your nvme clover bios module).
After reading the thread you quoted I agree and chose the Intel RAID ROM/EFI Raid Driver v13.1.0.2126 module and Intel RST(e) RAID driver v13.1.0.1058 WHQL driver. The question i now cannot answer for myself is the Following: A little background about my board first: Since before F16 And Latest F20 Bios for GA-X79-UD3, Bios options included the choice For RST or RSTe mode usage of the controller. Since F16 and F20 the option to chose has being omitted completely in BIOS and in the support section of the gigabyte site, only gives the choise to download RSTe mode Drivers (Not RST) version 4.3.0.1219 (GA-X79-UD3 Drivers Download) For Win10x64. Does that mean I can use the RST/EFI 4.5 bios module and the RST Raid Driver 4.x. latest windows drivers with the board? (Bios includes both EFI/RST and EFI/RSTe modules and no option to chose between them) OR stick with 3.8.10.29 RST/EFI module and 3.8.3.10.16 intel raid driver for win10x64? I am a bit confused!
Yes of course i can share it. It is modded with the latest NVMe support DXE4. Latest efi drivers and cpu microcode. You can analyse with tools from the forum to check it for your self. I don’t think there is anything new to upgrade to it but i haven’t searched for a while. I like to take this opportunity to thank Fernando and all here because it gave new life to my rig and i am still using the same machine and configuration all this time, without problems with PCI express NVMe boot from an 951 samsung drive in PCI express card addaptor.
PS. since i don’t have to much time anymore to fiddle, if you make it better by new additions or upgrades i would appreciate a word.
You saved my rig. love you. Gotta try it out immediately. you, Gantrithor and this forum is a life savior Thanks Fernando for this awesome community place.
I don’t think I will add any new additions to it. if this one works out of the box.
Np. Just remember that for installing windows to nvme drive you have to physically disconnect all other SATA drivers from the system and leave only the nvme drive connected to pci express, and after done installing windows reconnect all drives and you will be good … i screwed up on that a couple of times in the beginning but when i got it right, all was well.
… and if you need any help with BIOS setting let me know an i will tell you how i setup up mine.
It worked great. I see the 970 Pro Samsung SSD even listed in the bios.
A reinstall was needed for windows 10/8 to launch because I got bootloops, altough the walkaround with clover (on a USB Stick) had no problems booting it.
I am really happy and now with an ssd what a difference. Holy moly. Wow :] Thank You.
Oh, I got problems when turning the pc on and even when restarting. It powers on and off two times then showing boot failure, see picture attached and I found the reason. My bad.
My GA-X79-UD3 is Rev1.0 the bios provided is GA-X79-UD3 Rev1.1
I downgraded back to stock bios and no more boot failures.
