X79 Extreme6 with SX8000NP NVMe problem

dorken wrote: I recently added an NVME SSD ADATA SX8000NP with PCIe Adapter to my X79 Extreme6 board. Sure not the fastest but significantly faster than any SATA SSD and not more expensive, additional this SSD has an Legacy and UEFI Bootrom so i can use an unpatched 3.10 BIOS. But this combination produce an really strange effect: Windows 10 installed and starts without problems in UEFI Mode, but if FastBoot is enabled no SATA Devices connected to Intel SATA shown in UEFI and in Windows the Controller shows an Error in Device Manager. (already tried out IDE/SATA/RAID Mode) The ASMedia SATA Controller works fine in Fast/Ultra Fast Setting but its Bootrom (for DVD Boot) slows down the boot process even more... Has anyone heard something similar or an Idea how to make ist work with Fast Boot enabled?

Interesting, never heard of this situation in the past.

What driver is the Intel SATA controller using? Do you have the Microsoft storahci installed, which would happen automatically? Or do you have either the RSTe or IRST driver installed, which can be used in both AHCI or RAID mode? Your board's UEFI/BIOS should have an option to select using RSTe or the IRST driver. I don't know if that will make a difference fixing your situation, just asking.

The Windows 10 driver list for your board does not include an RSTe or IRST driver, but you may have found a compatible version from Intel.

The Fast Boot option settings actually cause a decreased POST time. That must be related to this issue.

dorken wrote: I now checked all combination of SATA UEFI Settings and driver, (MS/Intel, AHCI/RST/RSTe). After all no combination work, some show error in device manager some not, but always no SATA devices are found when connected with the Intel SATA. Seems to be a bug somwhere. Would be interesting if the Bug is in the UEFI with the SATA or external bootrom initialization, or if the Bootrom has a bug which shows up with tis board.

I agree with your guess about the Intel SATA Option ROM in the UEFI/BIOS. The last update is dated 5/2014. In general ASRock has been good about updating things like that, but Intel may not have an updated SATA Option ROM for X79 available. Part of that might be related to X79 initially being released using the RSTe enterprise SATA/RAID driver. Only later after user complaints was IRST SATA/RAID support added to X79, but that might have been a less than optimal fix.

The Fast Boot option really is a "fast POST" setting, with some things that normally happen during POST apparently being skipped, I don't know exactly how it works. But I do know it clearly is related to POST. At least you aren't stuck with that problem, but you are stuck not using the Fast Boot option.

I wonder if you installed Windows 10 for UEFI booting if that would make a difference. If your board's UEFI/BIOS supports it. In the boot order, you would see two entries for the Windows 10 installation media, one with the prefix "UEFI:", the other with "AHCI:" or "RAID:", depending upon the SATA mode used. Selecting the UEFI: entry causes the EFI boot loader to be used by the OS drive. Or did you do that already?

I can't find a listing for a CSM option or Secure Boot option in your board's manual. The manuals tend to not be updated when UEFI/BIOS options are added or changed, so I have no way of knowing if you have those options or not. CSM would likely be in the Boot or ACPI screens, Secure Boot in the Security screen. Both are used to configure UEFI booting, Secure Boot indirectly since it requires UEFI booting. Let us know if you have any of those options.

If you simply wish to decrease the PC startup time, you're fighting a tough battle. The Intel HEDT chipset boards (X79, X99) are slow to POST, due to the enterprise related chipsets. Yes they are high end boards but more complex with more features, quad channel memory for example. The more complex a mother board and chipset is, the slower it is to complete POST and start up.

If someone just wants a fast starting board, get a very simple one. My DeskMini 110W PC with H110 chipset, two SATA ports, dual channel memory, zero PCIe slots, with a dual core processor, cold starts up faster than any PC I've ever seen. I also have an X99 board PC, with an Intel 750 NVMe SSD as the OS drive, and six core CPU. Slowest starting PC I use, that is simply the nature of the beast.