Hi David,
Thanks for your guide, I've been reading it over and over for the last few hours.

I have a ASUS X99 SABRETOOTH
Currently on a 28Lane CPU (x16,x8,x4[/m.2]) (all 16x physical) will be upgrading to a 40Lane in the future.
I have my GPU in slot 1 x16.
Then an m.2 boot drive in the x4.

X99 Sabretooth
PCIe Root Port 1 (IOU2) (x8/x4) (Slot 3) - 0:1:0
Empty
PCIe Root Port 1 (IOU2) (x8/x4) (m.2) - 0:1:1
Boot m.2
PCIe Root Port 2a (IOU0) (x16/x8/x4) (Slot 2) - 0:2:0
ASRock
Samsung 960
PCIe Root Port 3a (IOU1) (Slot 1) - 0:3:0
GPU

I ordered an ASRock Quad m.2 card to put in the x16 Slot 2 (x8) works great but only the first m.2(1) port works because of bifurcation.

I have already found out my settings in the BIOS Mod can be set to x4,x4,x4,x4 which I'd like to apply to 16x slot2.
Which while I have a 28Lane CPU in there should work as a x4,x4 slot.

What I was missing from your guide was the reasons why I needed to change some of the other things like loading up the RU utility, I couldn't work out what I was supposed to be changing.

PCIe Slot 3 is already bifurcated on this board.

After writing all this just realised I missed a bit of the guide that said this just stores things in RAM before writing your bios to check.


Personal Notes:
IOU0 0x533, 0x534, 0x535, 0x536 (well that's easy to remember.)
I wanna change these to 00 for x4,x4,x4,x4

Hi,

Glad you enjoyed the guide. Not really familiar with your motherboard PCI-E lane allocation scheme.

In my case my board had an extra 4 lanes that went to waste with a 40 lane cpu. I had noticed that those extra
4 lanes were on the 2nd half of my last pci-e slot that shared bandwidth with my m.2 so I had to bifurcate that slot
to take advantage of those last four lanes or else you were just buying a 36 lane cpu!

Any how the reason why I used RU.EXE was because I needed to make minor changes here or there to my bios variables
and I didn't want to reflash the board every time. Changes included in the PCI-E timeout values and sync settings that were
necessary to help provide a true 8x 8x bifurcation because sometimes the board would fail to sync and down negotiate the
speed to 2x or 4x.

Fwiw I'm back to using stock bios for time being because my motherboard started to act weird since one of my gpus died a few
weeks ago. Long story...

This is the break down for my board:
http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/...Intel_750/2.png [40Lane]
http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/...Intel_750/3.png [28Lane]

The Three 16x slots Labeled 1, 4, 6 run at x16 x8 and x4 respectively, as I only have a 28Lane CPU instead of the 40Lane one, If I had the 40 it'd be (x16, x16, x8(shared with the m.2)

I used RU to set IOU0 0x533, 0x534, 0x535, 0x536 each to 00, when I rebooted into windows I still had only 1 x8 device running at x4 which was my 960evo which is sitting in the ASRock Quad M.2
https://www.asrock.com/mb/spec/product.a...AD%20M.2%20CARD

So the RU modification didn't take. I did a reboot and checked that the bits had been fliped, back into Windows and no change looking at HWInfo

I'm open to suggestions, apart from buying an X299 I don't have the money for new board and CPU

Well two things might be going on in your case.

1. Not using the right kind of m.2 card. I used a supermicro server based card in my case.

2. Bifurcation depends on having a physical switch on the motherboard or accessory card for it to work such that in my case there was an unused switch on the motherboard that I think helped me bifurcate.
These switches look like a black transistor on the motherboard and every two slots got a couple. This is what signals the board to switch from 16x to 8x when a second card is installed.

Also are you sure in RU your working on the correct section? You should be working on Intel Setup module corresponding to your IFR breakdown.

Edit I looked at your motherboard breakdown of lane allocation and I think you should at least be able to do the same exact mod as I did if you have a 40 lane cpu.

Not sure about being able to use a quad m.2 card would work. Those are proprietary and takes a lot of experimenting with different cards to get it to work.

Hardforum has a bifurcation thread you should check out.

Zitat von davidm71 im Beitrag #34

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2. Bifurcation depends on having a physical switch on the motherboard

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Okay quick update, decided to go for broke and enabled PCIe Slot 1 (the main x16 slot with my GPU in it) into x4x4x4x4 mode.
Ended up with 3a,3b,3c,3d and my GPU is sitting pretty in a x4 enabled slot.


Edit:

Can provide pictures/proof upon request.

David you are a legend!

I think I now need to buy a 40Lane CPU.

I moved my ASRock Quad m.2 card to the top x16 slot and moved my GPU down to my second x16 slot (running at x8). I'm going to suffer with GPU performance but it has proved my hypothesis that it does work. I think because I have a 28Lane CPU installed it's Pre-Bifurcate the second slot and turned off the last x8 lanes so the motherboard doesn't have an option for just x4x4.

See attached photos.

Thanks drevilish and way to go!!!

Maybe with a 40 lane cpu you can use the other slot and put your gpu back in the primary slot...

Maybe all you got to do is a cmos reset...

Anyhow you would not use the full X16 bandwidth anyhow on a 970 GTX..

Too bad they're not raidable. You could try a soft raid though. Use MS Storage Spaces.

No Thank you so much for the guide.
Was written perfectly all the information that was needed. I just read it wrong more than once.

2x 960evo 250GB in ASRock Quad M.2 x16
Windows Software RAID Stripped

That’s great. How did you create your software raid I wonder?

Nothing Fancy in the slightest, I'm not looking to use them in a RAID it was purely for the good old my car is faster than your car test :D 5GB/s is a good speed.

Windows -> Disk Management -> New Stripped Volume -> Then added the two drives

Zitat von drevilish im Beitrag #41

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Nothing Fancy in the slightest, I'm not looking to use them in a RAID it was purely for the good old my car is faster than your car test :D 5GB/s is a good speed.

Windows -> Disk Management -> New Stripped Volume -> Then added the two drives

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The RU steps are just to test the settings before flashing, right?

Not having any luck enabling bifurcation on a Supermicro X9DRi-F. The settings are already visible in the BIOS, but I went and followed the instructions to edit the optimal/failsafe settings in the BIOS, as well as the other timeout options you were talking about. I can only see the first SSD in an ASUS Hyper M2 card (of 3). It's in a 16x slot that's set to 4x4x4x4, both visibly in the BIOS and in the edits I made before reflashing it.

Bizarrely enough, forcing some of the options that Supermicro has limited to "UEFI Only" or "Legacy Only" to "UEFI First" (option not normally visible) before re-flashing made the nice LSI EFI utility show up in my Setup menu. I guess it wasn't a complete waste.

Zitat von davidm71 im Beitrag #42

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[quote=drevilish|p74090]
So anyone interested DO NOT USE STORAGE SPACES!!!

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Zitat von sheik124 im Beitrag #43

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The RU steps are just to test the settings before flashing, right?

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