Z170 Extreme4, m.2, etc. troubles
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URL: https://forum.asrock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=1960
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Topic: Z170 Extreme4, m.2, etc. troubles
Posted By: Mushu
Subject: Z170 Extreme4, m.2, etc. troubles
Date Posted: 09 Feb 2016 at 1:25am
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The current bioses for the z170 extreme4 leave a lot to hope for. Basic info first:
Bios 2.40 (stable but slow)
Makes no difference even if pcie link state power management is turned off. Disabling sata controller makes no difference. Forcing pcie links to pcie 3.0 makes no difference since there is no option to set it for the m.2 channel.
BIOS 2.70,2.80 and 2.90 (unusable/unstable)
Additional info All disks have GPT partition scheme, physically removing raid disks does not improve the situation (m.2 nvme connected only). Tried with newest drivers for all the HW and with windows defaults; makes no difference. I would appreciate it if Asrock tech support would try out m.2 nvme disks with the motherboard and iron out the bugs. (Ultra M.2 32 Gb/s (PCIe Gen3) -a feature advertized quite noticeably by the Asrock product page is atm a complete lackluster) -M |
Replies:
Posted By: netjrb
Date Posted: 09 Feb 2016 at 6:05am
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Hi, Can confirm some of what you are seeing. In the middle of building a new system (see below).
Used 2.50 and 2.60 BIOS. After Windows 10 install I get random hangs (screen freezes). Seems to get progressively worse, until I can't even boot the system. Running Aida Stress Test from a different drive, I can see the M.2 drive drop in and out of the temp sensor list. Finally gave up today and did an RMA on the Motherboard and SSD to Newegg. Didn't want to wait for ASRock to get back from vacation and miss my return window. Sounds like I'll be right back in same boat when the replacements arrive though. Thanks for your post, nice to know someone else is seeing these problems. Hopefully somebody with a similiar setup can respond with a way to get things stable. Rig: Z170 Extreme 7 i7 6700K samsung 950 pro m.2 (boot drive) |
Posted By: parsec
Date Posted: 09 Feb 2016 at 9:42am
First, how do you know your NVMe SM951 is running at PCIe 2.0 x4? What is telling you that? If that is the Samsung Magician software, then it is wrong. Unless you are using a PCIe slot adapter card for your SM951, all Z170 boards do NOT use the PCIe 3.0 lanes from the CPU for the Ultra M.2 port. The Z170 chipset has PCIe 3.0 lanes (for the first time from Intel) that are used for the M.2 interfaces, as well as the SATA interfaces. Intel calls this "DMI3", but the interface is essentially PCIe 3.0 bandwidth. Each Ultra M.2 port (PCIe 3.0 x4) in an ASRock Z170 board shares resources with two SATA III ports. You may use either one Ultra M.2 (I'll call it U-M.2) port, or two SATA III ports. The U-M.2 port has precedence. Setting the actual PCIe 3.0 lanes in the CPU to Gen3 does not affect the Z170 chipset. Some of your comments about the CSM option don't make sense to me. With CSM set to Disabled, the three CSM options we see when CSM is Enabled are all set to UEFI Only, or should be. ASRock has has the CSM option work this way since my Z77 Extreme4 board's UEFI. In theory there could be a bug in any board's UEFI, but I've never seen it with any of my ASRock boards. Your second comment about needing to set Launch Storage OpROM Policy to UEFI Only when CSM is Enabled, for your NMVe SM951 to be recognized by the Windows installer is correct. That is normal and to be expected when using a PCIe SSD, particularly with an NVMe PCIe SSD. That causes the Windows EFI Boot Loader to be used, as well as the Intel EFI Option ROM to be used. Both are essential for PCIe SSDs. Your SSD is not a drive using the SATA protocol, NVMe is completely different, does not use SATA, and cannot be expected to work as SATA SSDs do. The Fast Boot option has three setting, Disabled, Fast, and Ultra Fast. Only Ultra Fast requires CSM to be set to Disabled. Your board's UEFI may have some bugs in it as you described, like the freezing, I've seen that myself. I can't comment on all your claims, since I don't have enough information about your configuration. CSM cannot be Disabled if you installed Windows with CSM Enabled and the other options left on Legacy. That is just a reality. The speed of your NVMe SM951 is at the mercy of the Windows 10 NVMe driver, unless you can force install the Samsung NVMe driver supplied for the 950 Pro. The Win 10 NVMe driver is known to have performance problems with the NVMe SM951, mainly with write performance, sorry to say. I am currently using two NVMe PCIe SSDs with my Z170 Extreme7+ board, and an AHCI SM951. At various times I've had Win 10 installed on the SM951, and currently on a 950 Pro. I also have an Intel 750 SSD (NVMe), which is the Win 10 drive on my X99 board. So while it is possible your board's UEFI has some bugs, ASRock has tested the Z170 boards with NVMe SSDs. I don't have an NVMe SM951, but I doubt it is any different than other NVMe drives when it comes to installing Win 10, except for the Win 10 NVMe driver performance issue. The only advice I can give you about the freezing UEFI is if you are setting the BCLK to anything but AUTO, that seems to cause the freezing, at least with some versions of my Z170 board. ------------- http://valid.x86.fr/48rujh" rel="nofollow"> 
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Mushu wrote:Posted By: Mushu
Date Posted: 09 Feb 2016 at 6:34pm
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Hi, @netjrb, Thanks for posting and confirming that you have similar problems. @parsec, Thank you for taking the time to help out. I'll try to answer your questions to my best ability.
I use Aida64 for that information, additionally CrystalMark and ASS SSD benchmark both show transfer speeds that support the fact that only pcie 2.0 x4 is used, i.e. R: ~750M W:~750M.
Yes, I have connected the "normal" SSD drives to ports that are not shared with the M.2.
Ok, easiest way to reproduce it on my board is to set the "Video OpROM Policy" to legacy only and then disabling CSM. Then it can be observed that during boot up the visual appearance of the load screens (not windows but Asus's) differs from the uefi only setting being active under CSM before disabling the CSM. Thus, I would reason the setting does not default to uefi only when CSM is disabled.
Agreed, I too have observed and read about the poor performance of Windows default driver, thus I use the Samsung NVMe driver.
Yes, I figured that those are not changeable after install. I am installing with CSM enabled and all policies set to Uefi Only (this works ok in 2.40 but other bioses are unstable).
Thanks for the tip, I use (and have used) AUTO for it. My Uefi setup steps are below: (for 2.40 bios only, newer ones are unstable)
@anyone who is experiencing similar issues feel free to post them here and if you have workarounds please share. -M
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Posted By: netjrb
Date Posted: 10 Feb 2016 at 9:18am
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Here's more detail on my setup and what I've tried. System: Z170 Extreme7 (BIOS 2.60) intel i7 6700k EVGA GTX970 4 * 8gb RAM, Crucial Elite 1 * Samsung 950 Pro 256gb(boot), M2_1 slot 2 * WD Red 3tb(Raid1 storage), SATA3_4 & SATA3_5 slots 1 * Samsung 850 Pro 512gb(game), SATA3_A1 slot Windows 10 pro No overclocking My Uefi setup steps: Load Default settings set sata mode to RAID set CSM OPROM policies to Uefi Only, leave CSM enabled (also tried CSM disabled) I'm trying to boot off of a single 950 pro with RAID mode enabled. Windows 10 installation always goes perfectly, but as I said in my previous post it goes downhill from there. I get random hangs in Windows 10 and after each reboot they happen quicker until I hang during boot. I've tried all the following: -CSM enabled with UEFI only -CSM disabled -Loading the Samsung Driver post windows install -Disconnecting all the drives except the 950 pro Could having RAID enabled be the issue? I have it enabled so I can run RAID on my Western Digital Hard Drives. I don't have "RST Storage Remapping" set for the 950 pro. My understanding is if I do that the Samsung Magician software won't see the drive. Parsec, In your post you said you had success witha single 950 pro. Did you have RAID enabled, was remapping enabled for the 950? Thanks. |
Posted By: parsec
Date Posted: 10 Feb 2016 at 1:23pm
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Replying to netjrb: Yes I have had RAID enabled the first time I installed a 950 Pro in my Z170 EX7+, as the Win 10 drive. I've never had any problems using a 950 Pro on our board. That was IRST 14.5, which BTW has been removed from Intel's downloads. I've used 14.8 a month ago, and very recently I abandon RAID mode for AHCI, which is only used by a Samsung AHCI SM951. Otherwise I have a 950 Pro and Intel 750 in this PC currently. Recently I bought another 950 Pro to try them in RAID 0 as the OS drive. That worked out fine too, I never had the problems you have with the "hang" or system freezing I assume (IRST 14.8, with the 2.10 UEFI version installed, that has, "Update RAID ROM and EFI driver". I always install Windows with CSM Disabled, even with SATA SSDs. I want to use the EFI boot loader and fully use the UEFI firmware our boards have, rather than run it in emulated BIOS/Legacy mode, which happens when CSM is Enabled. Whatever CSM setting(s) you used when you install Windows determine how it operates. I know you had to at least set Launch Storage OpROM policy to UEFI only. What happened when you set CSM to disabled? I installed the Samsung NVMe driver, which results in an entry under Storage Controllers in Device Manager. That means that the Intel IRST driver is not controlling the 950. The version 14 IRST software can control NVMe PCIe SSDs, but RAID must be enabled, and two or three 950 Pro's are in a RAID array. If you have the IRST Windows driver package installed, with the IRST Windows UI, you won't see the 950 Pro listed as a recognized drive for use in a RAID array, unless two or more are in the PC. When you create a RAID array out of 950 Pros, the Samsung NVMe driver cannot see the SSDs, and won't install. That is trying the driver installation after the Win 10 installation. The Magician software can't handle RAID anyway, and only partially recognized the RAID 0 array of 950s. Pretty much like it does not completely recognize SM951s.b The IRST driver completely controls these SSDs when in a RAID array. I did not try installing the extracted files from the Samsung NVMe driver during the Load Driver phase of a Custom Install. How did you install the Samsung NVMe driver? The RST PCIe Remapping option should only be enabled if you want to create and use a RAID array of PCIe SSDs. I never see those options appear in RAID mode until I have more than one 950 Pro connected to the board. Are you saying you see the Remapping option with one 950 Pro installed, and using RAID mode? I don't recall that happening. What version of IRST are you using. Please be more specific than just 14. There is 14.0..., 14.5..., 14.6..., 14.7... (never released officially), and 14.8.... Did you check the Windows logs for any clues about your freezing/hang issue? Wow, your 850 Pro works Ok on the ASMedia SATA ports?  I have all kinds of strange stuff happening with an 840 Pro on an ASMedia SATA port. Win 10 manual TRIM will not complete, that semi-hangs the TRIM function, I must kill the process in Task Manager. AS SSD will not run on my 840 Pro when using an ASMedia SATA port, it just fails immediately. I tried running the TRIMcheck program on the 840 Pro, the program never finishes the first step. Two strikes against TRIM with a SSD on the ASMedia ports, does that mean no TRIM support by ASMedia? What driver are you using for the ASMedia chips?Which reminds me, the IRST driver, since version 11.6 I think it is, has had strange compatibility problems with the ASMedia chipset, and/or driver. I don't want to go into details here, but a simple thing to try is putting your 850 Pro on an Intel SATA port, since IMO that might be causing your issues. What is it that makes you think RAID mode and the 950 Pro might cause your issues? ------------- http://valid.x86.fr/48rujh" rel="nofollow">
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Posted By: parsec
Date Posted: 10 Feb 2016 at 2:50pm
Does your board's UEFI, in the Chipset Configuration screen, any of these options: PCI DMI ASPM Support PCH PCIE ASPM Support If so, if either of these are Enabled, that could cause the issue. Those are power saving options for the PCH. Otherwise, the 750MB/s write looks like the Win 10 driver is in use. But you say you installed the Samsung NVMe driver. Do you have an entry under Storage Controllers for a Samsung NVMe controller? This is what one 256GB 950 Pro does in AS SSD on my board, while running Windows: 
You mean the size of the font is larger on the ASRock splash screen? I would agree that seems to indicate that the Video OpROM Policy setting is taking precedence over setting CSM to Disabled. That sounds like a bug IMO, unless someone could explain why allowing a setting set to Legacy only with CSM Enabled is carried over when CSM is Disabled. That seemingly defeats the purpose of disabling CSM. Or does that allow a non-GOP compatible Legacy video source to be used with all the other UEFI option enabled.
My board does not have any of the Force M2 options shown, unless that only happens when SATA drives are connected to the SATA ports shared with an M.2 slot.
------------- http://valid.x86.fr/48rujh" rel="nofollow">
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Posted By: Mushu
Date Posted: 10 Feb 2016 at 7:17pm
Yes, those are present as well as these two; "PCIE ASPM Support" and "DMI ASPM Support". All of those are at default value, i.e. disabled.
Yes, I have under storage controllers an entry that reads: Samsung NVMe Controller.
Additional discovery with 2.40 bios, I have observed once that after a boot the SM951 NVMe ran at correct pcie 3.0 x4 (Seq Read speed ~1800M, Seq Write speed ~1200M). <- this is similar to result obtained consistently with 2.90 bios (which is unstable for me). Next boot returned the situation back to pcie 2.0, there were no changes to uefi or drivers between boots. *One more thing is that Aida64 indicates that PCIE2 link speed (used by GPU) is at pcie 2.0 x 16, not sure if helpful. **Other thing is that the z170 extreme4 online manual indicates that PCIE6 Link Speed should be selectable by the user under Chipset Configuration.(Could it be the link the M.2 uses?)
However, there is no such entry in the uefi. (only selection for PCIE2 and PCIE4, tried to set both to pcie 3.0 which had no effect on M.2)
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Posted By: Christer703
Date Posted: 12 Feb 2016 at 3:01am
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I have the z170 Extreme 4 board and having problems with my samsung 950 pro drive. i managed to install windows 10 on it without any troubles. however it is only stable with bios 2.80 and later. bios 2.40 i get freezing issues in windows randomly. tho with bios 2.40 i have full speeds on the samsung 950 pro disk. but i want it to be stable also so i have bios 2,90 now. with this bios the the bootup is much wuicker and the pc is 100% stable, however i get only half the speed on the m2 disk. (850read/750write). samsung magician tels me with the bios 2.40 my PCIe link speed is 10Gbps, and now with the 2.90 bios the speed is 2.5Gbps. Crystaldisk info confirms this because there it says i am running the ultra m2 slot in PCIe 1.0 mode. how can i fix this? There is one other very strange thing about this. if i put the pc in sleep mode and wake it up right away i actually get full speeds. but when i restart the system or turn it off and on again i get the same slow speeds. samsung macigian still says im running in only 2.5Gbps after wakeup from sleep tho. This problem i can reproduce over and over again. Programs i have used for testing these speeds are as ssd benchmark, samsung magician, crystaldisk mark, anvilbenchmark, aida 64 extreme. i also have the samsung nvme 1.1 driver installed. do i have to delete or remove old windows nvme driver???
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Posted By: netjrb
Date Posted: 12 Feb 2016 at 6:55am
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Hi Parsec, Thanks for the info. Please see response to questions below.
I'm using IRST 14.5.0.1081, downloaded from the ASRock website. Sounds like I should be using a newer version. Do you have a link to the latest? I upgraded the BIOS via internet update right after motherboard installation. It updated to version 2.50, don't remember what the version was before the update. Recently upgraded to BIOS 2.60, no difference in behavior. Should I not be using the latest version?
I only change BIOS options before Windows installation, never after. My last installation was with CSM disabled, didn't seem to help with the issues I'm having.
Downloaded from Samsung website and installed after Windows 10 installation. Was able to run Samsung Magician performance test on 950, before hanging caught up with me.
If I leave the CSM options as "Legacy Only" and disable CSM, the RST PCIe Remapping option does not appear. If I change CSM options to "UEFI Only" and then disable CSM, the RST PCIe Remapping option appears.
No haven't done that yet. Will research how to do that and get back to you.
Didn't make note of the ASMedia driver, it's whatever Windows 10 chose to install. Can't say the 850 was actually functional. I was able to format it. Could also see it in Samsung Magician. I don't get a lot of operational time before the system starts to hang. I did install Windows 10 on an old SATA drive. Using that I was able to run AIDA64 Stress Test without issue, but I didn't have the 850 installed at the time. Also was able to run Memtest overnight. So CPU and memory look good. I was planning on using the ASRock USB 3.1 front panel which leaves me with no available Intel SATA ports after I add my RAID drives. I was counting on using the ASMedia port for my 850. Going to be bummed if that won't work.
Really just speculation. Looking for what I might be doing different from everybody else who's had success. I've seen lots of posts with people using M.2's as RAID drives. Hadn't seen anyone before this with RAID mode enabled but only running a single M.2. |
Posted By: parsec
Date Posted: 12 Feb 2016 at 1:39pm
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It's starting to sound like at least one UEFI version for the Z170 Extreme4 may have problems. I say may only because I don't have this board and can't confirm that myself. With two users saying the same thing when using 950 Pros, that worries me. Quick tip about the Samsung Magician software, which I'm glad was mentioned by Christer703. You can see my 950 Pro runs at its normal speed in my AS SSD results. The Magician software lists my 950 Pro as running at 10Gbps, which seems to be reporting the speed of ONE of the four DMI3/PCIe 3.0 lanes, given a correct connection. This is what the Intel IRST Windows software reports for one 950 Pro:  Notice on the left side, the "PCIe Link Speed" of 4000MB/s. If you are using RAID mode, you can install this software and see what it reports your speed as. If you can do that, it might help prove your case about the UEFI issues. I've used IRST version 14.5 myself, and it did not change the speed of my M.2 connection. You can try the latest version, but I can't tell you it will fix your problem. This is it, but scroll down to the SetupRST.zip file, which is the one you want. https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/25165/Intel-Rapid-Storage-Technology-Intel-RST-RAID-Driver" rel="nofollow - https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/25165/Intel-Rapid-Storage-Technology-Intel-RST-RAID-Driver It is interesting that Christer703 said the Magician software listed his 950 as running at 2.5GBps. Plus the change in speed waking from Sleep. That is good evidence that for some reason the bandwidth of the DMI3 lanes in the Z170 chipset is changing to a lower speed. It should stay at full speed all the time as far as I know. Questions for those with this situation: Do you have any SATA drives connected to the Intel SATA ports? NOT that should make a difference, but just curious if that might be causing some strange interaction. That would include an Optical drive connected via SATA. If you do, what SATA speed(s) are the drives you have rated for? The Chinese Lunar New Year holiday started this week, so everyone in Taiwan is not working, including ASRock. So don't expect a quick reply from ASRock support for a while, sorry to say. ------------- http://valid.x86.fr/48rujh" rel="nofollow">
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Posted By: netjrb
Date Posted: 13 Feb 2016 at 3:24am
Hi Parsec, This is what I was getting at in my last post. The common factor seems to be M.2 paired with SATA drives in RAID mode. I'm on an Extreme 7, but my config is this: 1 * Samsung 950 Pro 256gb(boot), M2_1 slot 2 * WD Red 3TB(RAID1 storage), rated for SATA 6.0Gb/s, SATA3_4 & SATA3_5 slots |
Posted By: Mushu
Date Posted: 14 Feb 2016 at 9:45pm
My setup is similar to netjrb's 1* samsung SM951 m.2 nvme 256gb (MZVPV256HDGL-00000), Revision BXW7300Q
2 * sandisk ultra ii 960gb (raid0), Revision X35510RL
-M
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Posted By: parsec
Date Posted: 14 Feb 2016 at 10:55pm
Thanks guys, interesting information.  I'm reluctant to state that a RAID array of SATA drives is the cause of the apparent downshift in speed (a term used with SATA drives) in a PCIe SSDs, just yet. What if it is simply a SATA drive that causes this? That could be a problem with the Z170 chipset itself, since we have reports of this on different boards now, right? Also consider that there must be others besides you two that have a PCIe NVMe SSD and a RAID array of SATA drives connected to the Z170 chipset. Or simply SATA drives. I'm not aware of any other reports of your situation. Many possibilities and unknowns, to early to come to conclusions IMO. I have no SATA drives on my Z170 PC. It will take a little work to change that, which I'll do later today. I'll of course let you know what happens. ------------- http://valid.x86.fr/48rujh" rel="nofollow">
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Posted By: Mushu
Date Posted: 15 Feb 2016 at 3:07am
Thank you Christer for sharing this piece of information. I have now verified this exact behaviour on my z170 extreme4 board with bios 2.40. To recap: after cold boot the m.2 seq speeds are low ~750mb, initiate sleep and wake the comp up immediately and the m.2 speeds are up considerably ~1500(r) ~1200(w). -M |
Posted By: netjrb
Date Posted: 15 Feb 2016 at 9:05am
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Hi Guys, I just got my replacement Extreme7 motherboard. BIOS revision is 1.70. Decided to stick with that revision and see what happened. It is much more stable. Which I guess could just be because of the older BIOS. Don't get random hangs in Windows 10 anymore. But, if I try using Samsung Magician the system hangs. Parsec, What BIOS revision do you recommend using with the Extreme7? Thanks, netjrb |
Posted By: Christer703
Date Posted: 17 Feb 2016 at 10:58pm
Okay so i have found the source of the problem for me.
After a lot of testing i found out that by removing 2 of the 4 ram sticks (HyperX Fury 2666MHz 4x4GB), my ultra m2 port runs at PCIe 3.0 mode with full speeds all the time working exactly as its suppose to do. So either it is something with the bios that causes this problem or it is something wrong with the motherboard. I have tested the Ram so this is not the issue alone, however there might be a problem with this exact type of ram in combination with this motherboard. I am in contact with Asrock Support about this and will post the answer as soon as i get it. |
Posted By: parsec
Date Posted: 18 Feb 2016 at 1:48am
Thanks for posting what you discovered. That is quite strange that your memory caused the problem, I don't have an explanation for it... yet. The memory controller is in the CPU, and the M.2 slot uses the DMI3 lanes from the Z170 chipset. Whatever interaction (or bug) is involved is more complex than meets the eye. I tried creating a RAID 0 array of SATA SSDs on my Z170 Extreme7+ board to see if that caused the problem. It doesn't seem to make any difference on my board, and I am using two M.2 SSDs, a 950 Pro and an SM951.  This is a very special RAID 0 volume, composed of a Samsung 840 Pro and a Crucial M4, two completely different SSDs that share nothing besides being SSDs. The result surprised me, I ran the benchmark twice with the same general results:  The 4K write speed is surprising, and does not seem to be a fluke. The M4 limits the sequential write speed, but otherwise this is a good result, with excellent 4K write speed. Don't let anyone tell you that mixing two different SSDs in RAID 0 is not a good idea. Frankly I've never done this before now, I'm still not sure how I feel about it...  ------------- http://valid.x86.fr/48rujh" rel="nofollow">
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Posted By: netjrb
Date Posted: 18 Feb 2016 at 2:18am
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Hi Parsec, What BIOS version are you using? Thanks.
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Posted By: parsec
Date Posted: 19 Feb 2016 at 12:33am
Sorry, I meant to reply to your question a day or two ago...  I'm still using 2.50, with my Z170 Extreme7+ board. I've never had the random hangs in Windows you mentioned, and have run the Magician software many times, no problem. I've used almost every UEFI version our board has, including some of the no longer available Betas. I have an early production board that came with 1.40. Hard for me to say which version is the "best", since I never thought I had problems in Windows related to the UEFI version. But, I would suggest version 2.10 due to its update of the Intel RAID Option ROM and EFI driver. The EFI driver is used by PCIe SSDs, and the RAID Option ROM update has bug fixes for PCIe SSD RAID support. The IRST driver (version 14) that provides RAID support for PCIe SSDs is in its infancy, and while IMO it is not as good as it could/should be, I can't criticize it too much. It's a one of its kind software for PCs, and manages to work with multiple protocols (SATA and NVMe) at the same time. Quite an accomplishment by Intel, and provided free to us, if we purchase the appropriate platform.  We cannot forget ASRock in this as well, since they provide most of the few boards that let us use this capability.  ------------- http://valid.x86.fr/48rujh" rel="nofollow">
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Posted By: netjrb
Date Posted: 28 Feb 2016 at 6:19am
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Hi Guys, Finally found stability on my motherboard. The issue was having two Blu-ray drives hooked to the ASMedia SATA ports. Once I disconnected them I was stable. Swapped them over to Intel SATA ports and still stable. Mushu, Did you have any Blu-ray or DVD drives hooked to your ASMedia ports? |
Posted By: AlexF
Date Posted: 28 Feb 2016 at 11:35am
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I am having the same problem Christer has. My read speeds are too slow (especially random read). The speed jumps remarkably for a seconds when I put the computer to sleep and then wake it back up and immediately run the Samsung Magician benchmark test -- but then it drops to being slow again. I installed all the latest chipset drivers and the Samsung NMVe driver. My memory is running at 3200, I have a SATA SSD and SATA HDD plugged in as well. My setup is: GIGABYTE GA-Z170N-WIFI (rev. 1.0) LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Mini ITX Intel Motherboard + Intel Core i5-6500 6M Skylake Quad-Core 3.2 GHz LGA 1151 65W BX80662I56500 Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 530 + G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600) Intel Z170 Platform Desktop Memory Model F4-3200C16D-16GVK + SAMSUNG 950 PRO M.2 256GB PCI-Express 3.0 x4 Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-V5P256BW
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Posted By: parsec
Date Posted: 28 Feb 2016 at 1:23pm
UGH, ASMedia SATA chipset...  Some mother board manufactures suggest not using optical drives on the ASMedia SATA ports. Now you can see why. I had the 840 Pro I used in my crazy RAID 0 array connected to the ASMedia SATA chipset a while ago. I could not run AS SSD on it, it would fail with some error I've never seen before. Plus running the Win 10 manual TRIM feature on it would never finish, and I had to kill the the Properties process with Task Manager. The TRIMcheck program would hang when I tried to test TRIM on the ASMedia chipset. I've tried both an ASMedia driver and the generic Windows AHCI driver, no difference. I suppose you can use HDDs on the ASMedia chipset, but if I can't get a TRIMcheck or manual TRIM to complete on it, how can I trust using an SSD on it? I should say that about two years ago, the new (at the time) Intel IRST RAID driver had some kind of interaction with the ASMedia chipset that caused problems with the IRST Windows program. It would not run at all. I suppose the problems I see with the ASMedia chipset MIGHT be related to the IRST RAID driver, but I don't really know. How could this still be a problem years later? ------------- http://valid.x86.fr/48rujh" rel="nofollow">
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Posted By: parsec
Date Posted: 28 Feb 2016 at 1:29pm
Thanks for this information. Sorry you have this problem, but that it happens on another manufacture's mother board makes this issue a potential problem with the 950 Pro itself. I'm NOT saying I know this is true, but if we see more cases of this on other boards, that puts the drive itself into doubt. ------------- http://valid.x86.fr/48rujh" rel="nofollow">
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Posted By: AlexF
Date Posted: 28 Feb 2016 at 9:10pm
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Thanks for your input. You guys have some pretty good information in this thread and, for example, it was a good find that Christer noticed this is temporarily alleviated by sleep/wake-up. Not sure I would have thought of that if I didn't see his post about that. Yes, maybe a problem with the 950 Pro, but there are also a lot of similarities to my setup and Christers. Both running Win10 64-bit, and both motherboards on the Z170 chipset, etc. It is a bit weird removing 2 of his 4 RAM sticks fixed his problem. I am only using 2 sticks, 2x8 GB as you can see, and it's 3200 DDR4 which is specifically meant for the Z170. I'm wondering if I'm going to just have to wait this one out for something like a new BIOS update, an updated NMVe driver, a chipset driver update, etc. I have turned off all power management settings and even called Samsung late last week and talked to their support. I checked everything that they wanted me to and they still weren't able to figure out what it was. Similar to my experience as one of the first people to get a SSD when they came out, this may just be the temporary price I have to pay for being a relatively early adopter of M.2 NMVe technology :(
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Posted By: AlexF
Date Posted: 28 Feb 2016 at 9:27pm
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Also here are the speeds I'm getting to quantify what "slow" is: http://i65.tinypic.com/33biosg.jpg This is out of Samsung Magician 4.9.5 running on Win10 Pro 64-bit (10.0.10586) As you can see the writes both are very good. The sequential read is about 10-15% slower than I would expect....however, the random read is TERRIBLE. |
Posted By: domogled
Date Posted: 02 Mar 2016 at 4:36am
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Hello everyone, it is my first post here on asrock forum. I purchased an Asrock Z170 Extreme4+ motherboard couple of weeks ago, it is my third Asrock motherboard afterZ77 OC Formula and some socket a/462 motherboard I owned 12 years ago or more. Got some issues, various issues with the system I've built (I3 6100,Corsair Vengeance 2666 2*8GB, Samsung 950Pro 256GB NVME, WD 6TB green as hdd, one bluray writer, one dvd writer and an Asus Xonar sound card [from my previous system]). .The system runs win 7 sp1 64 installed from a stick and nvme drivers loaded also from a stick during installation. The system is great while working :D the problems occurs while trying to boot up and while shutting it down. Small problem first: 2 out of 3 shutdowns, the system shuts itself down, the windows is closing but electrically is still on, the coolers still spinning yet the OS is off, blank/black screen. I have to force the shut down from the button so it is also shut down electrically. And now the bigger problem, after 16 hours being completely off, no power in psu I switch the supply;s power button and power on the system from mobo;s button (I do not use a case).So i attempt a cold boot from the very beginning. The boot sequence (POST) is very oiften long, takes long to pass, sometimes hangs at various codes either 35, 53, F4 (no it is not memory related as it presents also while memory running at 2133) . I have to press reset, then at second, or third try the POST sequence is finally passing til code 99, it beeps for ok and onward to the windows logon screen... when it hangs. I have to press the reset button once again but if i wait for too long, the reset button won't go so i press the power button for 4 seconds. So, the second attempt, it hangs again, maybe, or maybe not. Sometimes I just shut down the power source from its button and it boots up like nothing ever happened before, quicker and maybe it hands while windows logon or maybe not. I know you may say, too many variables, why do you still use win 7 sp1 64. Well I believe the hanging at post is quite odd and has nothing to do with the operating system, and I guess the partial shutdown is about the same, motherboard related issue as operating system is closed yet electrically the system is still on. But, tha annyoinf thing is that the system works like a charm, after i managed to boot it in windows no complains whatsoever while it is on. Everyday i spend like 10-15 minutes to power it on. There is one slight overclocking concerning the ram modules, they are rated as 2666mhz but i keep them at 2800mhz. No voltage adjustments, everything on auto. The problems remains either i set the ram modules at 2666 or 2133, it behaves the very same. All drivers are the latest ones available, the NVME ones for the ssd are the latest available from Samsung and where installed while installing the windows, so no other drivers ever used before. The bios version i use is 2.30. not the latest but the previous one. One question tho, is there any difference between extreme4 bioses and extreme4+ ones? I mean the board is the same, extrem4+ has the usb3.1 panel. By the way, I've got the bay but not sata express cable so the panel is unusable for me no cable to connect it to the motherboard :( I installed windows 7 with CSM setting as uefi. Any ideas? Thanks for your time |
Posted By: Mushu
Date Posted: 03 Mar 2016 at 11:24pm
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Hi guys,
No I don't have anything connected to those ports, I have tried also disabling those before OS install. It made no difference.
I have a SM951 and can confirm similar result on poor read speed, (even with the fix I did). Should be around 2200MB for SM951 but I get only ~1800. My write speed however is at 1250MB as it should.
I can confirm this problem, I had this happen to me alot too. (I have the Z170 Extreme4)
I can also confirm this problem, random to no success in getting to windows after OS install. Then the good news: I managed to circumvent most of my earlier problems by doing the following Updated to bios 2.90 BCLK to 100.000 (not auto) PCH +1.0 Voltage up by 0.050V => 1.150V (<- this is now the same value as it was with bios 2.40) VCCIO Voltage up by 0.050V => 1.200V (<- this is now the same value as it was with bios 2.40) CSM disabled (first set all subpolicies to do not launch) fast boot enabled boot manager disabled Clean OS install Additionally I updated the EFI drivers inside the BIOS, but this is not necessary for stability. I just wanted to have newer raid driver... Now I have a fully stable system, with no random loss(disappearance) of the M.2 drive during boot up. Every boot works like it should, be it cold or reset. Sleep also works as it should and even M.2 channel is at PCIE 3.0 with R:~1800M and W:~1250M. My remaining issues are the low read performance of the M.2 and too high access time/low read IOPS for the SSD raid0 set.[0.250-0.170ms read access time according to AS SSD benchmark, read IOPS should be 2-4 times as high for 512B packet size, same problem without bios package modifications] Luckily I can live with these annoyances for the time being.
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Posted By: domogled
Date Posted: 04 Mar 2016 at 10:27pm
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Hey Mushu, I have an improvement yet I do not know it is just luck because I made the change only 3 days ago, so not many bootups-shutdown to confirm as a rule, rather I'd call it an improvement. Well I moved my memory modules closer to the cpu from A2 & B2 to A1 & B1. I thought i should give it a try and see. Out of 4 boot ups so far 3 were successful, no hang ups. Yesterday tho it hanged with a "00" code but right after reset it booted up with no hangs in windows logon. Actually I experienced no more windows login hangs at all, just a asingle hang with "05" code while shutting down but only once out of 3 shutdowns I wonoder whether the 2.90 might be a good idea for my 4+ too, is there any other difference between 4 and 4+ apart of the external bay? Maybe different pcb revisions of the same board? I have to read more about your settings to understand your approach. Right now i have no clue whether 2.90 is good for me or not, i am still using 2.,30 as 2.40 comes with some certain limitations. |
Posted By: Christer703
Date Posted: 05 Mar 2016 at 12:12am
Okay so after some emails back and forth with Asrock support, they sent me a bios update. (version 3.0).
This actually fixed the problem for me   The Ultra m2 port now runs in PCIe 3.0 X4 mode all the time with full speed 100% of the time. |
Posted By: parsec
Date Posted: 05 Mar 2016 at 12:50am
Given my personal experience with the performance of PCIe SSDs in RAID 0, and that of others in several threads that are months old now, the results are consistently disappointing. The only thing I found that helps the performance is setting the RAID 0 stripe size to 128K. The default stripe size of 16K gives results that are barely if at all better than a single PCIe SSD. The RAID 0 scaling of performance we get with SATA SSDs is not seen with PCIe SSDs, at least not yet. The Intel IRST driver is a factor in this, or the bandwidth of the PCIe interface is simply not up to providing the performance we expect to see. If you are using the Windows RAID capability, then its performance is another thing entirely, and is normally not as good as the Intel RAID. I would like to see a screenshot of your AS SSD results, as well as information about its configuration. ------------- http://valid.x86.fr/48rujh" rel="nofollow">
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Posted By: Mushu
Date Posted: 05 Mar 2016 at 10:56pm
I recon you use XMP profile for your memory, not sure If you tried already but make sure your DDR voltage is set to 1.35V. Also double check that the "auto" values match to those recommeded by memory manufacturer.
I would advice against to cross using bioses... doubt it is even possible to flash by "normal" means. My advice would be to try to make these 3 setting changes as I did and see if it solves your remaining stability problems. BCLK to 100.000 (not auto) PCH +1.0 Voltage up by 0.050V => 1.150V VCCIO Voltage up by 0.050V => 1.200V
Great news! Thank you for posting Christer. Hope Asrock gets the 3.0 out for rest of the ppl as well. Heres hoping it is a more general fix for a lot of these m.2 related issues.
Glad to oblige, please note though that I only have the 2 Sandisk ultra ii 960gb, Revision X35510RL in RAID0. Z170 Extreme4 got only 1 m.2 port. RAID0 configuration; stripe size 16kB, write-cache buffer flushing: enabled, Cache mode: off, GPT partition, NTFS filesystem. So here are my results with the bios 2.90 (with updated intel RST(e) efi driver: 14.8.2.2397) and intel raid driver (OS) 14.8.1.1043. (ps. results similar with default 2.90 bios)   In case someone is curious here are the M.2 samsung SM951 results: (samsung driver 1.4.7.17)   |
Posted By: domogled
Date Posted: 06 Mar 2016 at 1:44am
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Thanks a lot Mushu, indeed i use the xmp profile, actually the profile for xmp-2666 It requires ther same 1.2v, as all the other profiles either be spd(jedec) or xmp. I set the memory manually to work at 2800 but I haven't changed anything else, i left them all on auto and it results in a slight voltage increase to 1.27v, done automatically by the auto setting in bios/uefy. Shouldn't just let it manage the amount of voltage it finds to be necessary, i mean it is not a problem to rise manually the voltage to 1.35v i just thought not to wear the modules too much if they do not require a higher than 1.27v. I wrote down the rest of the settings and i'll set them accordingly. Indeed I had the fast boot set on dispabled, yet enabling it the CSM section disappears completely. If i deactivate de boot loader the system hangs again at win logon image, so it is no go for me that way. I'll be back with opinions and hopefully improvements regarding my system in the next days. thank you !  |
Posted By: Mushu
Date Posted: 06 Mar 2016 at 8:46pm
Ok, now given that you are running outside the XMP profile, it is not guaranteed that memory performs with standard DDR4 1.2V voltage (even 1.27V might not be enough). Typically the higher the frequency the more relaxed the timings must be and also it tends to draw more power -thus a bump in voltage is often required and maybe a drop in the timings too. ps. Auto voltage setting is a very conservative in its "guess". 1.27V might be enough to boot but not enough to assure proper functionality during heavy operations. Might make sense to run memtest to verify minimum required voltage as too low memory voltage can cause miss writes and corruption of the OS.
The CSM disappears when fast boot is enabled, but the settings seem to remain inside the CSM -thus I recommend to set them before disabling the CSM and enabling fast boot. Additionally, disabling the boot manager (under tools page in bios) should not affect normal booting. The boot manager is for setting custom names and order for different boot media. Hanging with it disabled would indicate that stability problem still persists.
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Posted By: domogled
Date Posted: 07 Mar 2016 at 10:43pm
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Thanks a lot Mushu , the settings you've recommended indeed fixed all the issues i had. The shutdown is done properly, the hibernation the same tho takes a bit longer to enter that state, longer that I was used to while using a Z77 platform, it is just fine, yet that hibernation issues i noticed while using various platforms persists. Actually the system wakes up out of the blue, no key or mouse button pressed. anyway that's not an issue of that new platform but something OS related i guess, or perhaps network (Wake on Lan) related as I have the network adapter connected directly to the ONT (fiber optics) equipment and perhaps it just gets woken up from GPON (ONT) device. So not a problem. Then the system no longer hangs while POST-ing, no freeze while accessing windows login page. Indeed i had one freeze but it was my mistake and had nothing to do i guess with the platform. I had an old Samsung ssd pluged on SATA 3_5 and something is wrong with its MBR. It used to be part of a raid0 array long ago, then it worked as a single ssd bootable for couple of years. Any OS could be installed yet if the ssd is connected as an additional device (not booting the os from it) the system hangs and gives all kind of errors, the ssd is detected as an array having its capacity seen as double. So the freeze I've got, the old Samsung 830 is the culprit. One thing I noticed tho, not an issue as it doesn't bother me at all... I noticed some sort of double start each time i power the system. It starts then quickly shuts down, the led's from power and reset buttons remains on, it shuts itself down then starts up again and the entire POST sequence is passing quickly and then boots up into Windows. Perhaps it is related to the slight over voltage settings I use for PCH 1.0V and VCCIO. I plan to run the memtest from a hiren;s boot disc and check if any memory errors occurs wil running both modules at 1.27v for 2800Mhz. I guess the timings should be lowered while using some poor quality IC's, I have no idea which IC's used Corsair for those vengeance modules but i guess they're just fine with those primary latencies made for 2666mhz profile. I've got no bsod or hanged program so far, actually the sole reason I upped a bit the frequency was that I thought it will be more stable using the memory divider for 2800 than the one for 2666. I gave a try on yesterday for a slight overclocking from 3700 mhz i upped the frequency to 4120, and as i use the stock cooler that wes as far as i ventured. It seems the 133mhz strap and the accroding memory dividers are not so great for these ram modules, and using the 100mhz strap the dividers were not that many. It was fun tho, yet the iGPU had to be turned off.As i plan to use the iGPU as graphics signal source the cpu overclocking of the i3 6100 will stay out of discussion. For the moment i am between monitors :) i sold the 24 inches planning to go for a 40 incher or 32, so i am back using some old dell 21'CRT, i have to use dedicated graphics solely for the vga output present on discrete graphics card but not present among the mainboard's outputs, so still curious about a slight overclocking for a little longer till i will remove completely the discrete card and swap back the iGPU and no more fun that way :) Thanks for your support Mushu ! |
Posted By: Mushu
Date Posted: 08 Mar 2016 at 11:51pm
Great! So glad that you got your system stabilized.
I cannot comment on this since I disabled hibernation from windows. I only use sleep.
Indeed, the uefi/gpt boot scheme is quite touchy and I can see it misbehaving with MBR raid disk as you discribed.
Now, I am not sure but I think my system does this same dual boot after I have reset the CMOS. I believe it is some automatic process that adjusts voltages/memory timings etc. to facilitate a successful boot. It could be MB battery related, or maybe some memory setting is not sitting well with the MB.
As long as the system is stable and you are happy with it - all is good. |