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Z170 ProM4s build help |
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culdog1 
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Joined: 02 May 2016 Status: Offline Points: 9 |
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 Topic: Z170 ProM4s build helpPosted: 02 May 2016 at 10:18pm |
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I'm wondering if anyone could help guide me with an issue. I have installed a samsung 950 NvMe m.2 drive on my board and was able to install win 10 after many tweeks w/ the bios. It boots fine (actually super quick boot time) but when I try to add a second drive for storage it wont boot (no post no nothing). I've tried every sata slot with no luck. When I disconnect it boots fine, I believe the problem lies in CSM or PCI-E or SATA settings in the bios. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
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SacsTC
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Joined: 03 May 2016 Location: Sacramento, CA Status: Offline Points: 3 |
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Posted: 03 May 2016 at 7:36am |
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Unfortunately, I cannot offer a fix for your problem, as I am having the same issue. Works fine with the M-2 for boot, but if any other Hard drive has a data cable hooked up, it refuses to boot. Remove them and it again boots fine.
Anyone with any ideas??
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culdog1
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Posted: 05 May 2016 at 9:10pm |
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Well it doesn't look to good for us here
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Xaltar
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Posted: 05 May 2016 at 9:47pm |
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Are you using a new SATA cable with the drives or an old one from a previous build? The reason I ask is because using a SATA 1 cable on any of my systems causes a post failure. Make sure you use new SATA 3 cables.
Aside from that I am afraid I can't really suggest anything other than perhaps removing the M.2 drive and trying to power the system with only a SATA drive connected to see of the issue still occurs.
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parsec
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Posted: 05 May 2016 at 11:47pm |
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Both of you Z170M Pro4S owners may know this, but with a PCIe SSD in the M.2 slot, the SATA3_0 and SATA3_1 ports will be disabled. That's because of the Z170 chipset's resources being shared between the two interfaces.
But I know you said you tried all of the SATA ports, and with the SATA drive connected, the PC would not boot, correct? When you say the PC won't boot, what happens? Do you get a black screen that might show a two character code? Are you able to get into the UEFI/BIOS with the SATA drive connected? Your board does not have the Dr Debug POST code display, so if POST fails you might see the POST code shown on your monitor. Or does it seem that the PC finishes POST, and you get the single POST Ok beep, if you have the POST beep speaker connected and enabled in the UEFI/BIOS? Can you review what CSM settings you are using? About the SATA drives, are they new or did you use them with other PCs? If you can get into the UEFI/BIOS, can you see the drives in the Storage Configuration screen? What is the SATA Mode Selection option set to? Is the SATA Controllers option set to Enabled? If you've used the SATA drives with other PCs, they could have a Windows System/boot partition on them, even if they were not the OS drive. Skipping the details about why that happens, it is a known thing that happens with Windows. Assuming the SATA drive has a System/boot partition on it, it is most likely the usual MBR type partition. Your Samsung 950 Pro configured as an OS drive, will have a GPT System/boot partition on it, which is required for any NVMe drive used as an OS drive. An NVMe SSD will not boot if it only has an MBR System partition. Given this situation, with the SATA drive running on your board with an MBR System partition, you now have two System/boot partitions. If the MBR System partition is used, or simply having multiple System/boot partitions, with one being incompatible with booting the 950 installation, the result is what you get, the PC won't boot. If you can put those SATA drives in another PC, and run Disk Management, you can check what partitions are on the SATA drive you are trying to use. If you find a System Partition on that drive, that is most likely the problem. The best way to fix that is to delete that partition, and format the drive. If the drive has files you want on it, transfer them off the drive first. Regardless, please answer my questions so we can figure out what is happening. I use SATA drives with an NVMe SSD as the OS drive on several ASRock boards, so it is certainly possible to do so. |
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SacsTC
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Joined: 03 May 2016 Location: Sacramento, CA Status: Offline Points: 3 |
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Posted: 06 May 2016 at 2:05am |
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Xaltar... I was using older sata cables, but just received some new ones. Have not yet tried them
Parsec...Can't speak for Culdog1, but my 0 and 1 ports are not being used as I did read they would be disabled when using M-2. I tried a blank formatted 1GB HD with the M-2 and still get no boot. As for post, I am getting the ASrock Logo and 4 options in the lower right corner. I can get into bios which does recognize all HDs and Optical drives. It shows the M-2 as first boot option and the Asus optical as second. All other boots are disabled. After POST, which seems really slow to me, with HDs hooked up, it goes into a loop to scan and repair HDs. Never got beyond 9% when this happens. Just received a new HD, (retail) so not formatted and will hook that up soon to try. " SATA Controllers option" unknown. Have to check that. " CSM settings" ???? OK, looked up CSM settings. Machine has only had win10 installed and I also tried resetting defaults in BIOS. With the slow POST, (my opinion), I am beginning to think that it may be a DDR4 incompatibility problem, so am going to research that also. Am using Corsair Vengeance LPX ddr4 2400 OK, gotta go, Solar Power Estimator is here to look at house and price that out for us. Thanks for trying to come up with a reason for this problem
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parsec
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Posted: 06 May 2016 at 1:00pm |
So you tried using JUST the ONE new HDD, with no other drives attached besides the M.2 drive, which is a 950 Pro (?), and the PC would still not boot? The thing about, "... with HDs hooked up, it goes into a loop to scan and repair HDs. Never got beyond 9% when this happens" could be related to what I said about the MBR System partitions, but I can't tell. That sounds like you had multiple HDDs connected to the PC. Where did those HDDs come from, another PC, or what? The failure to complete the repair on those HDDs, if that is the case, is not a good sign. Why they would need to be repaired is the question, which again could be due to what I described previously. To install Win 10 on an NVMe SSD, you would have to at least set the CSM sub-option, Launch Storage OpROM Policy to UEFI Only. That is NOT a default setting. If you reset the defaults in the UEFI as you said, and did not fix that setting, the PC will not boot. That might be an added factor to your original problem, whatever it is. Did you buy this PC pre-built? I wonder because I would think you would recall configuring CSM for your 950 Pro. After I installed an Intel 750 NVMe SSD as the OS drive on my Z77 Extreme4 board, I am finally realizing that it does not seem to be the NVMe SSD OS drives (950 Pro used with my Z170 board) that are causing a relatively longer POST than I have experienced in the past. The Intel 750 is known to be slow to start up, even after a firmware update to improve startup time. The Z77 Extreme4 board completes POST faster than I expected with the Intel 750. Boot times with Win 10 are random and never the same twice, who knows what Win 10 is doing before the desktop is displayed. My point? It seems that DDR4 memory is slow to POST, or simply takes longer to complete its POST procedures. Meaning it is normal for Z170 boards to have a longer POST process than other systems. It also depends upon how much memory you are using, the more you have, the longer it will take. If you want to see a long POST situation, try an X99 board with quad channel memory.  The Corsair Vengeance® LPX 16GB (4x4GB) DDR4 DRAM 2666MHz C16 Memory Kit - Black (CMK16GX4M4A2666C16) is included in your board's Memory Support List. So while the 2400 speed kit is not included, and the PC boots without the HDDs connected (right?), then your memory should be Ok. OTOH, Vengeance LPX like this was originally meant for X99 boards. We have seen some weird issues that were apparently fixed by using compatible memory, so who know? |
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SacsTC
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Joined: 03 May 2016 Location: Sacramento, CA Status: Offline Points: 3 |
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Posted: 08 May 2016 at 12:58am |
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Parsec..........
My Mobo is an H170M Pro 4S, so my bios may not have all the options you are talking about. My CMS settings are either enabled or disabled. CMS is apparently enabled by default. I have not seen "Launch Storage OpRom Policy but will look again. I had a free hour yesterday so went back trying to find the reason for the problem and came away just as baffled as before. Formatted a 1 TB HD and attached with a new SATA cable but no smiles. The machine boots with Win 10 from the M-2 with absolutely no problem as long as only the optical drive is attached. Any HD hooked up stops the boot. I used to build and repair Comps. Authorized Intel reseller and Microsoft MCSE certs. I have built literally hundreds of machines over the past 10 years. Closed down Trend Computers roughly 8 years ago, but made a decent income while it was up and running. Still dabble and build machines for friends and family, but this was a first with the M-2 option for me. Have built them with SATA SSDs for the boot and did not figure the M-2 would be any big challenge  .To me, POST time is slow and boot from the time Win 10 starts its circling icon seems really quick with the M-2, which is a Samsung EVO 850 M.2 Machine has 16 GB Memory, so that should not be a problem. At this point in time, I am just about ready to make an image from the M.2 and put it on an HD and use the machine that way until a newer BIOS becomes available that addresses the problem. I may play with it a little more when I get some free time, but am building a retaining wall and a new storage building as the storage area just raised their rates on me and I'm not going for it. I truly appreciate your input and ideas if you come up with any more, I will be happy to try them. Ron
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culdog1
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Posted: 09 May 2016 at 9:30pm |
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Well i spent some time this weekend trying to figure things out. I tried different things but nothing changed. I switched out power supply, hoping that might have something to do with it. When I say it doesn't boot, I mean nothing happens at all, it doesn't appear to even start a boot process. When I disconnect extra drive it seems to have a lag boot, but does complete post. No matter what settings I use in the bios once I add drive, nothing. By the way cables are brand new. Really odd this one!
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parsec
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Posted: 10 May 2016 at 1:21am |
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I see now that culdog1 and SacsTC are using different M.2 SSDs, so different that it's beginning to make me wonder... but as more information like this is known, there must be other things we don't know. Or it might be a problem with the UEFI/BIOS on this board.
I just want to say again that I use NVMe SSDs and SATA drives on multiple PCs using ASRock boards. I even have an Intel 750 NVMe SSD as the OS drive (Win 10) on a Z77 Extreme4 board, with two Intel SATA SSDs as data drives. My ASRock Z170 board is currently using only M.2 SSDs, no SATA drives, but I know I've had SATA drives working with it in the recent past. I'll revisit that PC to confirm the use of SATA drives is fine. I'm reviewing information below, please correct it if it is wrong. We also need clear answers to several questions you'll find below. You are both using the Z170M Pro4S board. http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z170M%20Pro4S/ SacsTC is using an M.2 Samsung 850 EVO, which is a SATA SSD. To use any SATA M.2 SSD as the OS drive, there aren't any special UEFI configurations needed. culdog1 is using an M.2 Samsung 950 Pro, an NVMe SSD. NVMe SSDs require some configuration of the CSM option in order to allow them to be used as an OS drive. Questions: UEFI/BIOS version you are using? You may already know all of some of the things I will review below, so bear with me, no offense!  Regarding the UEFI option settings, some of the settings we need to use are NOT default settings. That means each and every time we clear the UEFI/BIOS, or do a UEFI update, these options must be reset to the settings we need to use. Using a UEFI profile is a convenient way to save and restore your settings. A UEFI update will remove any saved profiles, be prepared to deal with that. In the UEFI, what is the SATA Mode in Storage Configuration? Default is AHCI. Please verify that the SATA Controllers option is Enabled. Also check the SATA Aggressive Link Power Management option, be sure that it is Disabled. When you connect HDDs, that cause the boot failure issue, are they recognized in the UEFI? That would be in the Storage Configuration screen, and in the System Browser tool. In the Storage Configuration screen, there will be an entry for each SATA drive. Clicking on an entry of a drive reveals its sub-options. Among the sub-options is one called Drive Type, or similar to that. Settings are either Solid State or Hard Drive, please set these options accordingly for your SATA drives. One thing to try when installing the HDDs, clear the UEFI/BIOS before starting the PC after connecting the HDDs. Do not think you can get away with not doing this. You'll need to restore all you non-default UEFI settings after doing that, including checking the Boot Order. That is very important, and may be related to your problems. Assume nothing is right automatically regarding Boot order. The one possible (maybe, could be) exception to this is the CSM setting, and ONLY applies to Z170 and other Intel 100 series chipset boards. That is, once Windows is installed in UEFI mode on an NVMe SSD, it seems the UEFI is smart enough to use the appropriate underlying settings to allow an NVMe SSD to boot without setting the CSM option correctly after a UEFI clear or update. I tried this myself as an experiment and Win 10 booted fine. If you check Device Manager, do you find an entry for ATA/ATAPI Controllers (or similar entry.) If so, what driver is being used for the Intel SATA controller? Did either of you install the Intel IRST RAID driver? That is also an AHCI driver, and would appear in Device Manager under Storage Controllers. I'm trying to establish if the Intel SATA controller is working and which driver is being used. That's enough for now, I'm out of time too. Any other information, like the models of HDDs you are using, would be good to have. |
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SacsTC wrote: