Asrock X99m 3.1 Killer - Samsung 850 Pro NVME prob

DustDevil wrote: I have been using my Asrock X99M 3.1 Killer matx board for over 6 months.  I recenelty decided to switch my sata ssd drive to a m.2 drive.  I pulled everything out installed the m.2 (Samsung 850 pro) rebooted and followed the steps to either a) storage UEFI only and b) disable CSM entirely.   Either way I have tried installing windows 10 pro from a usb dvd portable player, usb thumb drive as well.  I tired windows 7 pro as well.   All of them fail  Everything look good initially but then the rotating circle (win activity) 25-30 seconds into install freezes.  Hard locking the pc.     I have tried my old SSD drive and it goes into auto repair and freezes and hard locks as well.   I have tried countless combinations and tried front usb as well as install the drives on the rear on the motherboard itself.   I have no idea what is causing the problem please help.   I have followed several pci-e ssd drive threads and nothing has worked.

I assume you are using a Samsung 950 Pro M.2 SSD, correct?

You can just set the CSM -> Launch Storage OpROM Policy to UEFI Only, but you must do this or set CSM to Disabled.

In the Boot order, what are you choosing as the boot device for the installation media? You must choose the entry that is, "UEFI: <device name>", where device name is whatever you are using. If you use the AHCI or other entry, the installation won't work.

The Windows 7 installation media has a known bug in the structure of its files that cause a UEFI booting installation to fail. Don't bother with it. Plus Win 7 does not have a native NVMe driver that is required for the 950 Pro, two reasons it won't work.

You should clear the UEFI/BIOS before you start the installation, and set the CPU and memory to stock speeds, meaning leave them on Auto. You then set the CSM setting, and any other settings you need, such as RAID if you use it.

How are you formatting the 950 Pro during the installation? Does the Windows 10 installer see the 950 Pro? You should use the Custom installation option, delete any partitions on the 950 Pro, and then click on New to format it.

A USB flash drive is the preferred method for installing Win 10 on a PCIe SSD. How did you create your USB flash drive installer? Use a USB port on the board's IO panel. If a USB 3.0 port won't recognize the flash drive, use a USB 2.0 port.

What video card are you using?

You can find my guide for installing PCIe SSDs here: http://forum.asrock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=1236&title=how-to-install-windows-on-a-pcie-ssd