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Samsung 950 Pro long boot, Asrock Z170 Gaming ITX
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Prizm View Drop Down
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    Posted: 13 Nov 2015 at 5:04pm
I just clean installed Windows 10 (with "November Update") and was impressed that I didn't have to do anything with regards to detecting the Samsung 950 Pro. The ASRock Z170 Gaming ITX/ac BIOS found it with no problem, as did Windows 10. I didn't have to piss-fart around with drivers.

It boots fine, but there is a 10-15 second delay after the POST screen. During that time, all I see is a blinking DOS cursor in the top left of the screen. After the delay, the blue Windows 10 logo comes up.

I have no other drives currently installed. I wasn't sure if the BIOS was searching for other drives, but the hard disk LED flickers continuously during this delay, so it seems to be reading something from the 950 Pro.

I have changed the boot mode to "Fast", but that didn't change anything.

Any suggestions?

thanks



Edited by Prizm - 14 Nov 2015 at 8:40pm
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ok, after a total reinstall, I've solved the Samsung 950 Pro long boot problem. I'll go into detail below because this may help others.

Someone mentioned it may be due to CSM enabled in BIOS, and to try disabling it. This is like a compatibility mode for when your system isn't fully UEFI compatible.
I did disable CSM (compatibility support module), but then my system refused to boot. It would just go straight into BIOS and no further. I realised my SSD was no longer showing in BIOS. That's why it couldn't boot: For some reason the drive wasn't compatible with pure UEFI mode.

Turns out the friggin thing has to be formatted as GPT (GUID partition table) rather than MBR (master boot record). An MBR formatted drive is not compatible with UEFI-only mode, and it causes the system to boot in compatibility mode. When I installed Windows 10 the first time, it automatically formatted the drive as MBR, because CSM was enabled.

So I disabled CSM in BIOS (to ensure UEFI only mode) and rebooted with my Windows 10 thumb drive plugged in. I ducked into BIOS again to check the boot drive, and my thumb drive appeared twice: one was UEFI-enabled, one was not. The default was the UEFI-enabled one.

I restarted, and Windows 10 setup came up. I deleted my existing SSD partitions and created a new one. It automatically created 4 partitions (3 of which were system partitions). Reading on the net, it seems that Windows Setup creates two partitions for an MBR drive, and 4 partitions for a GPT drive. The stupid thing is that Setup doesn't actually say whether it's MBR or GPT. The easy way to tell is to simply count how many partitions it creates.

It all installed fine. There are a lot of websites that say your USB thumb drive with Windows on it also has to be formatted as GPT beforehand. This is not correct. The crucial setting is making sure CSM is disabled in BIOS first.

One more thing: after Windows was installed, CSM had been re-enabled in my BIOS, so I had to disable it one more time. Now instead of a 25 second boot, it takes 8-9 seconds.


Edited by Prizm - 14 Nov 2015 at 8:41pm
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Welcome to the world of EFI booting! Thumbs Up

I've been UEFI/EFI booting since my first ASRock board, the Z77 Extreme4.

Wait... no 950 Pro's at that time! Of course not, which makes no difference. You can EFI boot with any drive as the OS drive. Of course that is most helpful with SSDs.

I've noticed that even EFI booting with my 950 Pro is a bit slower than using an "old" 840 Pro, which is probably caused by the Samsumg NVMe driver loading. You have installed the Samsung NVMe driver, right?

Your description of the partitions created when CSM is Disabled is perfect. I always let the Windows installer format my SSDs, no need to do it yourself as you said.

Windows has had an EFI boot loader since Windows 7. Although it is in the wrong folder compared to what the Windows installer expects, that can be fixed. Windows 8 and beyond have the EFI boot loader in the correct folder.

Now the secret of CSM, Compatibility Support Module. While we have UEFI firmware as the BIOS firmware replacement in our boards, CSM runs the UEFI firmware in "emulated BIOS mode" when it is Enabled.

Guess what that does? It cripples the UEFI firmware to run as BIOS firmware did in the 1980's. Only 16bit addressing, able to only use one MB of your DRAM for POST and when using the UEFI UI. The ONLY thing CSM allows is the GUI interface we now have instead of the old textual BIOS interface, with no mouse capability.

So why does CSM even exist? One big issue, UEFI firmware when not in emulated BIOS mode must have the PC's video source compatible with a video protocol called GOP.

When UEFI firmware was first used, no video source (or very, very few) were GOP compatible. That meant a black screen if CSM was disabled. Early UEFI firmware boards did not even have an option to disable CSM! We didn't know CSM existed!

Ironically, the Intel integrated graphics is GOP compatible since Sandy Bridge processors. That is, with the correct VBIOS in the board's UEFI firmware. Newer video cards are mostly GOP compatible, but that is not a given. Any Nvidia chip video card before the 600 series cannot be made GOP compatible.

ASRock has supplied the GOP compatible VBIOS and EFI compatible Intel storage Option ROM since at least the Intel 7 series chipsets. That cannot be said of all mother board manufactures.
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Good thing I just upgraded my GTX 560Ti then.

Thanks for the info. I have installed the Samsung NVME Windows driver, I assume that's the one you were talking about?
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Hi,
I have same Z170 Gaming ITX board and a 950 Pro. I have Sapphire Radeon Fury Nano which is not GOP compatible.

I installed Windows 10 Pro using the USB UEFI partition. The problem is, my total booting time is not that faster. After the post screen, the Asrock logo remains. After 15 seconds with the Asrock logo, the circling thing appears at the lower half of the screen and the login screen pops up within 1~2 seconds. 

My question is, where can I find that SCM enable/disable option in the bios? I went through every pages in the advanced setup but cannot see it. 

If gop bios can only make the booting time faster in UEFI, shall I try normal MBR mode?
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Here's a screenshot of where CSM is on the ASRock Z170 Gaming ITX (bios version 1.50):



But if you've got Fast Boot enabled (without disabling CSM first), the CSM option might not show up. I remember there's some setting that would cause the CSM option not to display, and I think it had to do with fast boot.

But if your video card is not UEFI compatible then it theoretically won't boot in UEFI mode anyway.

Originally posted by luxiloid luxiloid wrote:

I installed Windows 10 Pro using the USB UEFI partition.
That doesn't mean Windows formatted your OS drive as GPT instead of MBR though. When I first installed Win10, CSM was enabled, so Windows formatted my drive as MBR by default. Which meant I couldn't boot in UEFI mode. I had to make sure CSM was disabled first before running Windows 10 setup.

Here's a quick way to tell if your drive was formatted as GPT or MBR:



Do a search in Windows 10 for "create and format hard disk partitions" (quicker than digging through the Control Panel) and open it. Select your C: and see if one of the partitions shows as "EFI System Partition".

For more confirmation that the drive is formatted as GPT rather than MBR, you can also right-click the gray "Disk 0" section on the left and choose Properties:




Edited by Prizm - 21 Nov 2015 at 6:15am
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Thank you for your kind explanation.
I solved the problem now thanks to you.

I tried so many options and then had to reinstall windows to make the boot the fastest with what I have. 

Since I don't have a gop compatible graphic card, I cannot use the fast boot option. It is much faster when disabling it. When I disabled this fast boot option, the CSM appeared. I set the graphics to legacy and then two other options to UEFI. After changing these options, my Windows 10 Pro then just hangs up when I boot from the power switch. It was booting very fast when I restart the computer with reset button. I figured out the Windows was installed to boot from previous settings so this might be fixed when I reinstall it.

I reinstalled the Windows 10 with the UEFI USB partition and made sure the Windows made four partitions and the SSD is formatted in GPT. Now the booting is so fast. After the Asrock logo bios screen, it almost immediately goes into the login screen without even showing up the circling animation. When I install Samsung NVME driver, the the circling appears for about 1~2 seconds. I uninstalled the driver and now it is fast again without any circling animation. Previously I had to wait about 15 seconds with just Asrock logo then, another 1~2 seconds with the circling animation.

It is a pity that I did not know about the gop stuff before building the new computer but this booting time is still a great advancement compared to my previous Windows 7 and Core2-QUAD system.




Edited by luxiloid - 23 Nov 2015 at 10:00am
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Originally posted by luxiloid luxiloid wrote:

After the Asrock logo bios screen, it almost immediately goes into the login screen without even showing up the circling animation. When I install Samsung NVME driver, the the circling appears for about 1~2 seconds. I uninstalled the driver and now it is fast again without any circling animation.


Ahh, now that's interesting. Hopefully as Samsung update that driver, it will speed it up. I have the driver installed and I also get the animation for a couple seconds.
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