Z77 Extreme 4 NVME PCI-E SSD BOOTING!

zazzn wrote: So I just wanted to share with everyone, that I was able to get my machine to boot a NVME PCI-E Intel. You will need to install a modified BIOS which has the correct drivers to allow booting form the NVME drive however, once done, you are on a course for smooth sailing for 1000 MB+ of SSD bliss.  You can find all the information you need here however, if you don't want to go though the trouble you can use my pre-modified BIOS here I just wanted to share my excitement with my new found loved brand of motherboard. I also noticed they have their own BETA bios for NVME support here which is pretty sick considering the board is several years old.  I'm a long term computer enthusiast and I can say without a shadow of a doubt my next board will be ASRock. I've had ABIT, ASUS, GIGABYTE, SOYO, MSI and I can say without a shadow of a doubt, I will choose ASRock again next time.  I'm waiting for ASRock to release a new z170 with Alpine ridge support and a configuration similar to the Z170x-UD3 which can support 3 NVME drives :))))

My question for you about your modified UEFI with NVMe support for the Z77 Extreme4 board is this: Can you get into the UEFI/BIOS UI with your modified UEFI version, using the Restart to UEFI program, or the standard way with the Del or F2 key? That is, with an NVMe SSD as the OS/boot drive?

I'm not sure I understand what you mean about waiting for ASRock to release a board that supports three NVMe SSDs?

ASRock currently has three Z170 mother boards that support three M.2 NVMe SSDs, the Z170 OC Formula, Z170 Extreme7+, and the Fatal1ty Z170 Professional Gaming i7.

Plus you can always use M.2 to PCIe adapter cards to use more NVMe SSDs on any ASRock Z170 board, as well as standard PCIe NVMe SSDs like the Intel 750.

zazzn wrote: Yes, the only thing you modify with the tool is the modules that are loaded for the UEFI. IN this case I modified the driver for booting from PCI-E with the one that they have available. It doesn't change the BIOS code at all it's like updating the Intel ME drivers, similar to this you basically add modules and drivers for the UEFI shell to load so that it can read the hardware.  I'm waiting for Asrock to use the Alpine ridge controller as well, basically the UD3 has everything I wantbut its not a Asrock board, so I'll hold out! UD3 is priced in the 120-150 range

I understand the UEFI/BIOS modification to provide NVMe support. You really did not answer my question.

When using an Intel 750 AIC PCIe NVMe SSD in my Z77 Extreme4 board, with the ASRock P2.90M Beta UEFI with NVMe support, the board will not go into the UEFI UI normally. I see a POST code of A9 IIRC, and an otherwise blank screen.

In order to get into the UEFI UI with that configuration, I must clear the UEFI first. This workaround works, but is not optimal.

My question was, when using the UEFI that you modified, and a similar configuration to mine, are you able to get into the UEFI UI normally?

Also, the Z170X-UD3 board has only two M.2 slots that supports PCIe 3.0 x4, not three.

That board has a Thunderbolt add in card connector, but does not seem to have an Intel Alpine Ridge Thunderbolt 3 controller chip on the board itself.

The first Alpine Ridge Thunderbolt controller chip was released in Q3 2015, which is after boards like the ASRock Z170Extreme7+ were released.

BrettMc wrote: Hello, First post. Can anyone tell me if the ASRock P67 EXTREME4 (B3) LGA 1155 will support the NVMe protocol? What kind of performance can I expect from a PCIe SSD with this board if the NVMe protocol is not supported? Thanks much!

Support of the NVMe protocol is provided by the NVMe driver. There is no reason you cannot install an NVMe driver in a Windows installation on a PC with your mother board. Windows 8.1 and 10 have a built in NVMe driver provided by Microsoft. Otherwise the NVMe SSD manufacture will provide an NVMe driver, most of them do.

What is loosely called "NVMe Support" in the UEFI/BIOS is required if an NVMe SSD will be used as the OS/boot drive. Your board does not have a UEFI/BIOS version that provides NVMe support, so in general an NVMe SSD cannot be used as the OS drive. An NVMe SSD could still be used as a data drive on your board.

Certain NVMe SSDs like the Samsung 950 Pro and possibly the 960 Pro and EVO series, have a built in Option ROM that takes the place of the NVMe support in a board's UEFI/BIOS, and are able to be used as the OS drive in PCs without NVMe support.

The performance of an NVMe SSD in your board depends upon the level of PCIe support you have, which depends upon the CPU you are using. Performance does not depend upon NVMe support as I described it above.

Most NVMe SSDs require a PCIe 3.0 x4 interface to provide their full performance. If you have an i5 or i7 Ivy Bridge processor in your board, then you have PCIe 3.0 support from the PCIE2 and PCIE4 slots. If you have a Sandy Bridge processor, you will have PCIe 2.0 support in the same slots.

The PCIE5 slot will be PCIe 2.0 x4 regardless of the CPU being used.

A PCIe 2.0 x4 interface will limit the large file sequential read and write speeds to ~2,000MB/s. You may also see a small reduction in the high queue depth 4K random read and write speeds.

Or what do you mean specifically by performance?

Thank you for this!

I will be testing Z77 Extreme4 Q BIOS with an EVO 970 next week. I'll post results! I have heard general problems with IEEE1667 and NVMe boot, Samsung say they have fixed it with 970.

What I want to do it migrate my existing OS from AHCI SATA SSD, but obviously need NVMe driver active. Not really sure how I'm going to do this?

Hey Rock,