NVME M.2 on Z170 Extreme 4 not working?
Printed From: ASRock.com
Category: Technical Support
Forum Name: Intel Motherboards
Forum Description: Question about ASRock Intel Motherboards
URL: https://forum.asrock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=3609
Printed Date: 23 Jul 2025 at 12:52pm
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.04 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: NVME M.2 on Z170 Extreme 4 not working?
Posted By: Murdock9
Subject: NVME M.2 on Z170 Extreme 4 not working?
Date Posted: 17 Oct 2016 at 6:32pm
|
" rel="nofollow - Hi all I just installed my first NVME M.2 SSD (Samsung PM961) on my Z170 Extreme 4 and it's showing some strange behaviour. I actually think it's faulty, but I'd like to make sure I set it up correctly first. When I first started the computer with the new SSD, it was working fine in Windows (10). After a reboot, it disappeared. I tried a few things and updated the Bios to the latest version (7.00) and the drive showed up again, only to disappear again when I turned the PC on again later. No matter what I do now, I do not get the drive to work again, it doesn't even show in the device manager anymore. Interestingly enough, the PC takes a lot longer to boot now, even with Fast and Ultra Fast boot enabled. If I'm not mistaken, an NVME SSD does NOT show in the storage devices list of the UEFI, only in the system browser overview? Mine doesn't show in either one. I disconnected my system drive and started a Windows 10 installation to see if that sees my drive, but it doesn't either (with CSM set to UEFI or disabled completely). So in my opinion, it's pretty obvious that the drive if stuffed, I just want to make sure I didn't miss anything crucial for an NVME device to work. Thanks |
Replies:
Posted By: Murdock9
Date Posted: 28 Oct 2016 at 6:30pm
|
" rel="nofollow - Okay guys, here's an update to my situation: I got the PM961 drive exchanged for a new one, but the PC still didn't recognize it unfortunately. I didn't want to put up with the possibility of getting two broken SSDs in a row or my Motherboard having a faulty M.2 slot, so I kept playing around with it. I tried resetting the CMOS to see if that helps, but for whatever reason it didn't work- neither via the onboard Jumper nor via the switch on the backpanel, the UEFI/Bios did not reset. Next, I switched over to the backup bios (2.80) and tried again. And... it actually worked. The UEFI system browser found the drive and I could use it in Windows straight away. Unfortunately, only until I rebooted the PC again. The drive disappeared in Windows and the NVME controller entry in the device manager is showing an error "Device could not be started" (CSM disabled). Probably the most important difference though is: The system browser in UEFI is STILL showing the drive with Bios version 2.80, which isn't the case with version 7.00. Any ideas would be very appreciated guys. Either we seem to have a compatibility issue or there's something I'm missing in the UEFI settings? |
Posted By: parsec
Date Posted: 28 Oct 2016 at 10:11pm
|
" rel="nofollow - I assume you have your PM961 in the M.2 slot, or is it in an M.2 to PCIe adapter card? Shouldn't make a difference either way. The PM961 is one of the OEM version of Samsung's latest NVMe SSDs, and given what I've read can be problematic working in some PCs. The main reason is the NVMe driver being used. It should be fine in your board, it has NVMe support out of the box. Why the 7.00 UEFI did not work well apparently is strange. The M.2 slot on your board is shared with the SATA3_0 and SATA3_1 ports, so if any SATA drives are connected to those ports, that will cause problems. You mentioned nothing about an NVMe driver, so I assume the inbox Windows 10 NVMe driver is being used. I've read the Samsung NVMe driver for the 950 Pro will work with either version of the '961 (SM961 or PM961), so if you haven't tried the 950 Pro's driver, do so. Search for the 950 Pro's product page, and find the NVMe driver link, and download and install it. Not sure if the new 960 Pro has a product page yet, but if that exists, use its NVMe driver. ------------- http://valid.x86.fr/48rujh" rel="nofollow"> 
|
Posted By: Murdock9
Date Posted: 28 Oct 2016 at 10:30pm
|
" rel="nofollow - Hello Parsec, thanks for your reply Yes, the drive is in the M.2 slot. When the drive was actually being recognized in Windows, I replaced the default driver with the Samsung driver (also tried out the Intel driver). At first it worked fine, I formatted the drive and ran a few benchmarks- until I shut down the PC and came back later. That's when I got the device manager error and reverting to any other driver versions did not help. My other SSD is not connected to one of the shared ports. Any other settings in the UEFI that might cause issues here?
|
Posted By: Murdock9
Date Posted: 31 Oct 2016 at 6:06am
" rel="nofollow - Meh, this is frustrating- I can't see a pattern as to when the drive shows up and when not.
Any idea as to what else I could try? It'd help a lot to find out if this particular drive (PM961) has been tested in the Asrock "labs" for compatibility. It's still possible that there's a problem with my motherboard (M.2 slot) but I already had to replace it before because of another problem and taking the whole PC apart again would be really annoying. |
parsec wrote:Posted By: parsec
Date Posted: 31 Oct 2016 at 10:28am
Compatibility issues for a PC device, particularly a storage drive, is a thing of the past. The PM961 was primarily created for use by laptop manufactures, whose systems can and will be very different. Your board has multiple NVMe SSDs listed as compatible, although that is simply a formality. It's like listing SATA drives as compatible, if a manufacture made a storage drive that had very specific compatibility requirements, then they must be intentionally trying to keep it from being generally used in PCs. I've installed multiple models of NVMe SSDs in ASRock boards including Z77, Z97, X99, and Z170. I've never had any problem using a Samsung SM951 and 950 Pro, Intel 750 and 600p, and OCZ RD400 as an OS drive. As long as the board's UEFI supports NVMe SSDs, they can be used as OS disks. The situation with NVMe SSDs, is they must have Windows installed in a certain way. They are not plug and play for OS drives as SATA SSDs are. Without going into the technical details, this is what you must do: 0. As always with Windows, only the target OS drive MUST be the ONLY drive connected (or at least connected to power) when Windows is installed. Ignore this at your own risk. 1. Your Windows installation media should be a USB flash drive. That's because you must select the correct entry in the boot order for the installation media, and a SATA optical drive may not provide that selection. The entry in the boot order to use MUST BE like this: "UEFI: <USB flash drive name>", where <USB flash drive name> is however your USB flash drive appears in the boot order. If you are trying to use a Win 10 disk, if you do not see an entry of "UEFI: <windows disk>", or whatever it is recognized as, using that other entry will cause the installation to fail, even if it completes the installation. After a restart, if it even works once, it will fail eventually. The "UEFI:" prefix causes Windows to use the EFI boot loader, which is essential for use with NVMe SSDs. Ignore this at your own risk. 2. You need to configure the CSM option in the UEFI/BIOS. The easiest way is, in the Boot screen,with CSM set to Enabled, open the CSM sub-options, and set the Launch Storage OpROM Policy to UEFI Only. This insures the Intel EFI Option ROM will be used with an NVMe SSD, which is critical. Samsung claims the 950 Pro has its own built in Option ROM, which is no doubt true, but do we know if the PM961 does? No I don't, most people aren't even aware the 950 Pro has that Option ROM. I mention this mainly so others reading this that are aware of this don't think I'm an idiot. But the risk mentioning this is you'll then ignore configuring this CSM option. Did I ignore doing this with my two 950 Pros, that work perfect as the Windows 10 drive in my ASRock Z170 board, and DeskMini 110W PCs? No chance. Before you ask where does ASRock have these instructions, I'll tell you they don't have them anywhere. But I'll then ask anyone that thinks that is wrong, where does Samsung, the manufacture of your SSD, have these instructions? Did Samsung provide these instructions for you? If not, why not? That is what I personally find frustrating and annoying. 3. Win 10 has an inbox NVMe driver, that for some reason does not work well for some users of NVMe SSDs. Since the PM961 is sold only as an OEM drive to PC manufactures, it is not supported by Samsung at all to those that buy it at the retail level. Meaning Samsung does not provide an NVMe driver for the SM961 to anyone besides the OEM manufactures. The SM961 uses a different SSD controller than the 950 Pro (the new Polaris model) so the 950 Pro driver may or may not work correctly with the SM961. So the NVMe driver used is one of the main problems owners of this SSD must deal with. The true retail version of the PM961, which will be the 960 EVO once it is released, may have its own driver. Using the Intel NVMe driver was a mistake, that will fail. You might find this thread in another forum helpful with your SM961, for finding the correct NVMe driver, which I think is discussed in this thread: http://www.overclock.net/t/1603995/samsung-sm961-nvme-thread" rel="nofollow - http://www.overclock.net/t/1603995/samsung-sm961-nvme-thread ------------- http://valid.x86.fr/48rujh" rel="nofollow">
|
Posted By: Murdock9
Date Posted: 04 Nov 2016 at 9:40pm
Thanks for alle the time you invested here Parsec, much appreciated. I'm afraid the problem is somewhere else though. I can't even see the drive in the system browser. It only seems to work when I switch back to Bios 2.80- after a few reboots, it's gone again and will not come back until I do a full reset or change versions again (not working at all with 7.0). I'm pretty sure I either got another faulty PM961 or there's something wrong with the M.2 port of my board.
|
Posted By: Murdock9
Date Posted: 27 Nov 2016 at 9:54pm
|
Well, I'm back with another update- it actually does seem to be a compatibility and/or Bios issue. At work I got my hand on another three separate Z170 Extreme 4 Motherboards (mixed Bios versions 3.2 and 7.00) and three different PM961 drives- NONE of them worked properly with each other, they just behaved like I described above: The drive is only recognized by the system (ie the UEFI system browser) in around 1 out 10 boots. So I had a total of 4 boards and 4 drives that I could test, I doubt they were all faulty somewhere. |
Posted By: parsec
Date Posted: 28 Nov 2016 at 12:05pm
" rel="nofollow -
So this is happening with either the 2.80 or 7.00? There are four versions beyond 2.80, but before 7.00. Have you tried any of those versions? If it is only the 7.00 UEFI version that has this apparent problem, which only adds support for the new Kaby Lake processors, then don't use it. There might be a problem with the UEFI version, but we are not yet hearing about problems from users of other M.2 NVMe SSDs that have this board. http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z170%20Extreme4/?cat=Download&os=BIOS Any NVMe SSD, like the PM961, should work fine on any board with UEFI firmware, just as a data drive. NVMe support in the UEFI is only needed for an NVMe SSD to be usable as an OS drive. But, the PM961 is not a retail product from Samsung, they are meant to be sold as OEM (Original Equipment Manufacture) drives, to PC manufactures that have support directly from Samsung for any unique support needed in the UEFI/BIOS. Do you at least have the CSM sub-option (at the bottom of the Boot screen) Launch Storage OpROM Policy set to UEFI Only? You might also find it in the Storage Configuration screen. If not, try that setting, and then Save and Exit for it to apply, and then check for the drive being seen in System Browser. Personally, I configure all of my PCs/boards with CSM disabled, to use the full benefits of the UEFI firmware. Your board should also have an NVMe Configuration screen, listed in the Advanced screen. That screen really only lists the NVMe SSDs, but at least is another place where they are recognized. I've never used a PM961, but I have used three different NVMe M.2 SSDs in my Z170 Extreme7+ board. They were all recognized fine, and I use two of them in that board all the time. ------------- http://valid.x86.fr/48rujh" rel="nofollow">
|
Posted By: Murdock9
Date Posted: 29 Nov 2016 at 8:54pm
" rel="nofollow -
Thanks for the reply, Parsec.
|
Posted By: J Z
Date Posted: 29 Nov 2016 at 9:26pm
|
" rel="nofollow - Windows 7 or Wondows 10 ? ------------- Kind Regards, JZ https://shop.JZelectronic.de - Der Shop mit ausgesuchter ASRock Profi Hardware https://www.facebook.com/asrock.de |
Posted By: parsec
Date Posted: 29 Nov 2016 at 10:26pm
That is so weird, the disappearing of the drive. I have never seen that with any M.2 drive, and I have six of them. Not a PM961, but two 950s, two SM951s, a 600p, and an RD400. The differences with the various UEFI/BIOS versions seems crazy, I have never had one of the four boards I use M.2 drives with, and different UEFI versions (I use all versions) suddenly cause the M.2 drives to disappear. Since you are booting from another drive, at least you can get into Windows. Since you are using Win 10, you don't need an NVMe driver, and even if you did (with Win 7 or 8), the drive should still be seen in the UEFI. The M.2 slot is shared with the SATA3_0 and SATA3_1 ports on your board, which is how it is done on the new Intel 100 series chipsets. So if you have any SATA drives in SATA3_0 and SATA3_1, you must move them to other Intel SATA ports. Your board's UEFI, in Storage Configuration, has the M2_1/SATA3_0_1, SATA_EXP0 Switch option. Try setting that to Force_M2. ------------- http://valid.x86.fr/48rujh" rel="nofollow">
|
Posted By: J Z
Date Posted: 29 Nov 2016 at 11:15pm
|
Okay, Windows10. I have no problems with Samsung 960 Evo and 960 Pro  ------------- Kind Regards, JZ https://shop.JZelectronic.de - Der Shop mit ausgesuchter ASRock Profi Hardware https://www.facebook.com/asrock.de |
Posted By: J Z
Date Posted: 29 Nov 2016 at 11:50pm
------------- Kind Regards, JZ https://shop.JZelectronic.de - Der Shop mit ausgesuchter ASRock Profi Hardware https://www.facebook.com/asrock.de |
Posted By: Murdock9
Date Posted: 01 Dec 2016 at 1:03am
|
Thanks for the replies guys. I just checked, I don't have an "advanced NVME" section in my UEFI.
Already tried that before. When I set it to Force_M2, the boot time increases by almost 2 minutes but it doesn't change anything. I was able to see and format the drive in Windows (10) with Bios 3.4 and 2.8 until I rebooted, then it was gone. With Bios 7.00 and 3.2, I could only see it in the system browser like once or twice- never in Windows. |
Posted By: Murdock9
Date Posted: 04 Mar 2017 at 10:50pm
|
" rel="nofollow - Well, I'm back (again)... with some interesting news! I returned the last PM961 that I had when I wrote my last post and ordered a Samsung 960 EVO, thinking that there is a general compatibility issue with this board. The 960 EVO only just arrived last week and I built it in straight away- and it doesn't work either. Tried BIOS 7.20 and 3.20, the UEFI system browser did not show it. So basically I had three different Z170 Extreme 4 Board, three Samsung PM961 SSDs and now a 960 EVO and none of them worked together. For some strange reasons I didn't throw everything out the window but instead did some digging: I found several users who use Samsung 960 EVOs and Pros on their Z170 Extreme boards successfully so I started back at zero. I unplugged everything (SD card reader, Creative Soundblaster Z, Gainward Phoeinx GTX 1070, two other SATA SSDs) and only left the 960 Evo drive on the board. And... it worked, the 960 Evo was found in the UEFI System browser straight away. I started putting everything back together and found out that as soon as the GTX 1070 is back on the board, the drive disappears from the UEFI system browser again. Well... I think this is it, I'm pretty sure I found the root cause- but I don't know what to do. Any ideas where I can go from here? Any specific UEFI settings that I could try? |
Posted By: parsec
Date Posted: 04 Mar 2017 at 11:43pm
That is just the strangest situation I've heard of with M.2 NVMe SSDs. I have two 960 EVOs now, and I've used them in RAID 0 and just one as the OS drive in my ASRock Z270 board, never any problem with them being recognized. Except when in RAID 0, I see the 960 EVO in Storage Configuration, NVMe Configuration, and System Browser, before and after the Windows 10 installation. That is normal when using NVMe SSDs in RAID. That your 960 EVO is shown in the UEFI after removing the video card is really crazy. I use video cards (not a 1070) in all my PCs with NVMe SSDs, and never had a problem with the SSDs not being recognized. There aren't any specific compatibility situations with any Samsung NVMe SSDs and mother boards. At the OCN, SSD forum, there is a thread specifically about the SM961. They are being used with all different kinds of mother boards and other hardware, and recognition problems are very rare. Sure, older boards without M.2 slots won't show them in most UEFI/BIOS, but that is when using M.2 to PCIe slot adapater cards. As you can see above, J Z has a 960 EVO in his Z270 Extreme4 board. We are not getting any other posts in this forum about problems with NVMe SSDs and your board. Forgot if I asked you about this, have you ever cleared the UEFI/BIOS with the board's jumper when you make changes to your hardware, as you described? That is very important to do. I know you've changed UEFI/BIOS versions, which is the equivalent of a UEFI/BIOS clear, but I always do a clear every time I change even the location of some hardware in a PC. The only thing I can think of is the size of the MMIO (Memory Mapped IO) being used by the 1070. That is related to what is called TOLUD (Top Of Lower Usable DRAM). That is memory reserved for hardware, which has a limited size. Some board's UEFIs have an option to adjust TOLUD, and of course yours does not seem to have that option, in the Chipset Configuration screen. I can only check the manual for that option in the UEFI, a later UEFI update might have added it. It would be called Top Of Lower Usable DRAM. Setting it to Dynamic would be setting to use. If that is the issue, which I am not sure of, there is not enough memory allocated for the 1070 and the NVMe SSDs. Do you have another video card to test with, to see if it makes a difference? Are you changing any options in the UEFI that might be causing this situation? I always see my NVMe SSDs after a UEFI clear, and when I adjust storage related options. ------------- http://valid.x86.fr/48rujh" rel="nofollow">
|
Posted By: Murdock9
Date Posted: 05 Mar 2017 at 10:58pm
" rel="nofollow -
Hello Parsec, thanks for your detailed reply, I hope we can get this sorted out... it's driving me nuts. This is what I did regarding your ideas: - Yes, I reset the CMOS (multiple times) - I found the "TOLUD" option in the UEFI, it was already set to Dynamic. I also tried both other options (2.5 and 3.5 GB), but this did not help either. - I put in a GTX 960 card and the 960 evo was working perfectly straight away. The system browser found it and I was able to set it up in Windows. Anything else we can try ? |
Posted By: Murdock9
Date Posted: 05 Mar 2017 at 11:00pm
Hi JZ, seeing as you seem to have a similar set up, did you have any issues when using a certain GPU? Thanks. |
Posted By: parsec
Date Posted: 06 Mar 2017 at 10:26am
" rel="nofollow -
I'm glad your 960 EVO was finally recognized, I had a feeling the 1070 was related to your issue. We've been seeing many issues with the new 1000 series Nvidia based video cards, mostly with older boards. Usually they (video cards) are not recognized, but you have a different problem. The amount of base memory the new video cards are using is huge, older boards have much smaller allocation sizes of that memory (which is shared with devices like your 960 EVO) and may never be able to work with them in some cases. Since the TOLUD option is there, keep it set to Dynamic, even if it does not work with the 1070, you have a better chance of it eventually working set to Dynamic IMO. It may max out at 3.5GB, I don't know what the limit is. How much DRAM memory do you have in that PC? The only other thing I can think of, which this time I cannot guarantee will make a difference (my last suggestion was a bit of a gamble, but based upon experience) is to do a FULL UEFI/BIOS clear, which means moving the Clear CMOS jumper, and removing the board's battery for at least 10 minutes at the same time. That will completely clear the memory in the UEFI/BIOS chips that is not cleared with a standard CMOS clear. There is a short guide about that, here: http://forum.asrock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=630&title=how-to-clear-cmos-via-battery-removal Otherwise, I don't have anything else to suggest that I can think of at this point. A UEFI/BIOS update might, repeat might, be able to fix this issue. The present time is a bad time for random UEFI/BIOS updates, with the release of Ryzen systems, all the ASRock engineers are swamped with work. Meaning the chances of getting such an update anytime soon is small. Please do NOT grab onto this idea as the magic fix for your issue, I may be wrong about it making a difference. If anything else comes to mind, or I find new information, I'll let you know. I have eight NVMe SSDs, five of them in use as OS drives, and I've never had this issue. But I also do not own a 1070 video card. ------------- http://valid.x86.fr/48rujh" rel="nofollow">
|
Posted By: Murdock9
Date Posted: 07 Mar 2017 at 6:07am
|
" rel="nofollow - I did a full UEFI reset and tried it again, but still no luck. I also tried plugging the 1070 into PCIE port 4, but that didn't help either. I appreciate all the effort and your honest words about a possible fix. Nonetheless, still a really annoying situation seeing as it's been keeping me busy for months now. Not sure where I go from here, I'll probably have to go for another board (again) and/or check another GPU. Would contacting the Asrock support make any sense in your opinion? |
Posted By: Murdock9
Date Posted: 14 Mar 2017 at 6:21am
|
And another interesting update: I got my hands on a brand new Z270 Extreme 4 Board (note the z270, not z170) and rebuild everything. The 960 evo shows in the UEFI under storage (with the 1070 plugged in), but not in the system browser. I boot up Windows 10 and there is no Evo there. I reboot the PC, the Evo is gone from UEFI as well... I give up  |
Posted By: parsec
Date Posted: 14 Mar 2017 at 8:26am
Has the 960 EVO has been initialized and formatted in Windows 10 on another PC, or the Z270 PC? If it has not been initialized and formatted yet, it will not appear in Windows until is has been formatted. If you open Windows Disk Management, are you prompted to initialize the 960 EVO? That should happen if it has not been formatted yet. From there is must be formatted, creating a new volume. If you open Disk Management, you don't see the 960 EVO at all? Or if you run a Windows Command Prompt (Admin), and run the diskpart command, and enter list disk, if the 960 EVO is formatted it should appear with a capacity of 465GB. It if it listed, note the Disk #, and enter select disk n where n is the numbers shown in the list for the 960 EVO. If that works then enter detail disk, which will show the drive's name and other information. I'm stuck about what the problem is. We have not had other reports of either of the boards you are using, having a problem with NVMe SSDs. ------------- http://valid.x86.fr/48rujh" rel="nofollow">
|
Posted By: Murdock9
Date Posted: 14 Mar 2017 at 6:34pm
|
Sorry, I should've mentioned that: When I said it's not visible in Windows, I meant It's neither in the Device Manager nor in the Disk Management. I'm tempted to try another GTX1070 but I can't get a hold of one of them to test. Still, I appreciate all the effort you put into this Parsec.
|