Windows 10 Freezes on Z97 Extreme6 w/950 Pro

Which UEFI version are you using? I imagine you are using at least version 2.10, which adds NVMe support.

Which PCIE slot were you using for your video card? If you were using the PCIE2 slot, that would cause your 950 Pro to be covered by the video card. M.2 SSD tend to run warm, since they have no metal case to use as a heat sink for the SSD controller.

The 950 Pro is known to run hot if it is not given adequate cool air flow. It will begin to throttle its performance when it reaches ~70° C. A video card mounted on top of it that is also dumping its heat onto it is a worst case installation situation for any M.2 SSD.

It's interesting that you said you get the freezing when you were running software installation programs. Those of course are write intensive situations that cause the greatest temperature increases on a 950 Pro. Seems like too many coincidences to ignore a potential over heating issue with your 950 Pro.

Have you ever monitored the temperature of the 950? The hardware monitoring program HWiNFO64 will display the temperature of the 950 Pro in it Sensor Status display:

http://www.hwinfo.com/download.php

Besides this, the only other thing I can think of is how good the UEFI booting compatibility of the VBIOS of your video card is. With CSM disabled, you are running full UEFI booting, which requires the video source's VBIOS to be compatible with the UEFI firmware GOP video protocol.

I'm NOT criticizing setting CSM to Disabled (I encourage that), that is one way to allow an NVMe SSD to work as an OS drive. The question is if the XFX (AMD/ATI) VBIOS GOP compatibility is good. I use UEFI booting Windows installations exclusively, so stay clear of non-UEFI compatible hardware. Nvidia has had fine GOP driver support for a while now (600 series video cards), and the Intel iGP drivers and VBIOS have been GOP compatible since Sandy Bridge processors. AMD/ATI VBIOS GOP support is a grey area, and not well known to me.

But I've found that it is the video card manufactures that need to be up to date with the VBIOS support for GOP, given that the basic support is provided by the video chip manufacture. For example, EVGA cards are all GOP compatible since the Nvidia 700 series cards, out of the box. Their 600 series cards need a VBIOS update, which EVGA will provide. Other manufactures are not as clear or helpful about this, at least in the past, IMO. My knowledge on this topic for XFX is zero.

It's more likely you are having a over heating issue with your 950 Pro, than a VBIOS issue. I use 950 Pros, and make sure they run as cool as possible. Yes, they run warmer than any other SSD that I've used, and I've used quite a few.

Check the temperature of your 950 now, without the video card, and then put the card back in and see what you get.

Hi there.