ASRock.com Homepage
Forum Home Forum Home > Technical Support > Intel Motherboards
  New Posts New Posts RSS Feed - Samsung 950 Pro M.2 on Asrock Z97 Extreme6
  FAQ FAQ  Forum Search Search  Events   Register Register  Login Login

Samsung 950 Pro M.2 on Asrock Z97 Extreme6
 Post Reply Post Reply Page  12>
Author
Message
  Topic Search Topic Search  Topic Options Topic Options
Lez501 View Drop Down
Newbie
Newbie
Avatar

Joined: 25 May 2015
Location: Edinburgh
Status: Offline
Points: 22 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Lez501 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Samsung 950 Pro M.2 on Asrock Z97 Extreme6
    Posted: 08 Nov 2015 at 9:53am
Hi Guy's

Does anyone know if the Asrock Z97 extreme6 board, with uefi 2.50, supports the new Samsung 950 Pro NVMe M.2 SSD drive.

I bought one to use in my Clevo P670SE Laptop, where the bios recognises it, and I can install Win 8.1 on it, with no problems.  I thought I'd try it in my extreme6 board, with a view of getting a 512GB one to replace my SM951.  However, the board does not recognise it in bios, but windows 10 can still see the drive.

No biggie per se, just curious as to what is going on.

TIA

Lez
Back to Top
Jaeon View Drop Down
Newbie
Newbie
Avatar

Joined: 03 Nov 2015
Status: Offline
Points: 9 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Jaeon Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 Nov 2015 at 1:32pm
http://forum.asrock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=1174&title=what-worked-for-me-z97-extrem6-nvme-samsung-950
Back to Top
parsec View Drop Down
Moderator Group
Moderator Group
Avatar

Joined: 04 May 2015
Location: USA
Status: Offline
Points: 4996 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote parsec Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 Nov 2015 at 3:06pm
Originally posted by Lez501 Lez501 wrote:

Hi Guy's

Does anyone know if the Asrock Z97 extreme6 board, with uefi 2.50, supports the new Samsung 950 Pro NVMe M.2 SSD drive.

I bought one to use in my Clevo P670SE Laptop, where the bios recognises it, and I can install Win 8.1 on it, with no problems.  I thought I'd try it in my extreme6 board, with a view of getting a 512GB one to replace my SM951.  However, the board does not recognise it in bios, but windows 10 can still see the drive.

No biggie per se, just curious as to what is going on.

TIA

Lez


So you are saying that a 950 Pro is recognized in the UEFI/BIOS of your Clevo P670SE Laptop?

Is that in the Boot order only, or is it shown in a list of drives similar to the Storage Configuration screen in the UEFI of the Z97 Extreme6?
Back to Top
Jaeon View Drop Down
Newbie
Newbie
Avatar

Joined: 03 Nov 2015
Status: Offline
Points: 9 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Jaeon Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Nov 2015 at 1:05am
All I wrote is what I can offer. Nothing should be read into my post
Back to Top
whntxboy View Drop Down
Newbie
Newbie


Joined: 09 Nov 2015
Status: Offline
Points: 2 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote whntxboy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Nov 2015 at 6:26am
I've spent the weekend trying to get my Extreme6 motherboard and Samsung Pro 950 to work together.  I've been using the Extreme6 for several months with no problems. Just received the 950 and have been try to get it to work. In the UEFI bios, the M2_1 slot and M2_2 slot are not recognized with the 950 inserted into either. To check for SATA conflicts, I've unplugged all other SATA connections except for 3_0 with the boot drive. I've also removed the graphics card. What I've got at the moment is the raw motherboard, a single SSD boot drive, and the 950 Pro installed. No other SATA slots are used, nor are any PCIe slots.

If I let the system boot, and the Samsung NVMe driver loads, Samsung Magician sees the drive and can access it. The whole thing seems flaky, though, as the 950 drive seems to come and go under Windows 7.

Are we just on the bleeding edge? Do we need a firmware update on the 950 or a bios change on the Extreme 6 to get these things to work properly?
Back to Top
parsec View Drop Down
Moderator Group
Moderator Group
Avatar

Joined: 04 May 2015
Location: USA
Status: Offline
Points: 4996 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote parsec Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Nov 2015 at 2:56pm
Originally posted by whntxboy whntxboy wrote:

I've spent the weekend trying to get my Extreme6 motherboard and Samsung Pro 950 to work together.  I've been using the Extreme6 for several months with no problems. Just received the 950 and have been try to get it to work. In the UEFI bios, the M2_1 slot and M2_2 slot are not recognized with the 950 inserted into either. To check for SATA conflicts, I've unplugged all other SATA connections except for 3_0 with the boot drive. I've also removed the graphics card. What I've got at the moment is the raw motherboard, a single SSD boot drive, and the 950 Pro installed. No other SATA slots are used, nor are any PCIe slots.

If I let the system boot, and the Samsung NVMe driver loads, Samsung Magician sees the drive and can access it. The whole thing seems flaky, though, as the 950 drive seems to come and go under Windows 7.

Are we just on the bleeding edge? Do we need a firmware update on the 950 or a bios change on the Extreme 6 to get these things to work properly?


It is not uncommon for an NVMe SSD to not be recognized in the places we expect a drive to be shown, such as the Storage Configuration screen in the UEFI/BIOS. Is that what you are referring to when you said it is not recognized in either of the M.2 slots?

Be sure to use your 950 Pro in the M.2_1 slot, since that is the only PCIe 3.0 x4 slot available on this board. The M2_2 slot is PCIe 2.0 x2, and won't let the 950 perform optimally.

Just because you aren't seeing the 950 Pro listed in some of the usual places does not mean it is not working correctly.

Don't forget the 950 Pro is an NVMe drive. That is not related to SATA at all. There cannot be any SATA conflicts with it on the Z97 Extreme6 board, since the Ultra M.2 slot is connected to the CPU's PCIe 3.0 slots, and not to the SATA chipset at all.

UEFI version 2.10 adds additional NVMe support, that was initially added in version 1.60. Which UEFI version are you using? The 2.10 UEFI may not change how the 950 Pro is not shown in the UEFI.

Did you check the System Browser tool in the UEFI to see if the 950 Pro is recognized? You can also run System Browser from the ASRock A-Tuning program.

Have you run Disk Management in Windows to initialize and format the 950 Pro? Was is recognized in Disk Management?

You said you installed the 950 Pro driver, which will create an entry in Device Manager, under Storage Controllers. Windows 7 does not have a built in NVMe driver, so you must have the Samsung driver installed, and restart the PC after the installation. Win 8.1 and 10 have a built in NVMe driver, but you should use the Samsung driver anyway.

You will likely have problems installing Win 7 on a 950 Pro, due to the lack of an NVMe driver in Win 7. You cannot use the Samsung driver with the Load Driver option in the Windows installation program.

If the Samsung Magician software can recognize the 950 Pro, then everything is fine. How does the drive seem to "... come and go under Windows 7."

Yes, we are on the leading/bleeding edge when using any NVMe SSD. You now have drives using two different protocols (SATA and NVMe) on the same PC platform. The UEFI probably should have a separate listing for NVMe drives, but the source of the UEFI firmware, AMI, does not seem to have that capability yet, even on the new Z170 boards.
Back to Top
parsec View Drop Down
Moderator Group
Moderator Group
Avatar

Joined: 04 May 2015
Location: USA
Status: Offline
Points: 4996 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote parsec Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Nov 2015 at 3:00pm
Originally posted by Jaeon Jaeon wrote:

All I wrote is what I can offer. Nothing should be read into my post


Whom are you responding to? My question is aimed at Lez50, who I quoted in my post.

My question was not meant for you.
Back to Top
Lez501 View Drop Down
Newbie
Newbie
Avatar

Joined: 25 May 2015
Location: Edinburgh
Status: Offline
Points: 22 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Lez501 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Nov 2015 at 6:34pm
Thanks for the suggestions so far guy's, appreciated

Parsec

 - yes, the 950 Pro SSD drive is shown as present in the bios on my P670SE laptop (Mobile Intel HM87 Express Chipset, although it only supports PCIe 2.0 x4 devices).  I don't know where the chipset sits in relation to Z97 (earlier/later).  I'm pretty happy with the laptop using it's current SM951, as it's a little faster than the 950 pro.

I'm just a little miffed that the 950 pro is not recognised by the bios of the extreme6 board.  I appreciate the 950 is "new technology", but basically it's an NVMe drive and the board is meant to support it - I could understand it if it was a different interface.
Back to Top
whntxboy View Drop Down
Newbie
Newbie


Joined: 09 Nov 2015
Status: Offline
Points: 2 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote whntxboy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Nov 2015 at 11:13pm
Parsec,
Thanks for your suggestions and observations. I was thrown off by the fact that the 950 pro did not show up on the storage configuration screen on the UEFI Extreme6 BIOS. I see now that this is strictly a listing of SATA ports. I'm not sure why M2_1 and M2_2 are listed there, however.  This makes for some confusion.  The M2_1 (with the 950 installed)  does show up under the  Tool>System Browser screen. It also shows up in the Boot Priority settings. I installed the Samsung driver, and the Windows 7 hotfix mentioned earlier in the forum. All works fine now.

I'm still trying to understand why I'm not getting the performance I expected. It's still good, just not at max. Samsung Magician reports 1667 MB/s for sequential reads, 1547 MB/s for sequential writes.

Thanks again.
Back to Top
usurper View Drop Down
Newbie
Newbie


Joined: 12 Dec 2015
Status: Offline
Points: 1 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote usurper Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 Dec 2015 at 1:33am
I just got the same motherboard and ssd drive (asrock z97 extreme6 and samsung 950 pro).

BIOS version 2.5
O/S windows 10


cloned fresh install of windows 10 from old ssd drive to the new samsung 950 pro.

on cold boot, goes to bios because the 950 pro not detected (m.2 slot 1).  if rebooted a few times, it will finally boot from the 950 pro.

any ideas on what the problem is?
Back to Top
 Post Reply Post Reply Page  12>
  Share Topic   

Forum Jump Forum Permissions View Drop Down

Forum Software by Web Wiz Forums® version 12.04
Copyright ©2001-2021 Web Wiz Ltd.

This page was generated in 0.391 seconds.