@hancor I'm hoping perhaps you might be able to nudge me in the right direction...

To the best of my memory, I modded my Z87-K mobo to allow nvme-pci booting a long time ago, like at least 2 years or so? maybe more? I recall it basically going off without a hitch with whatever the patched .CAP file I found, and the box ran absolutely flawlessly from then until earlier tonight when I did something stupid. I wish I could remember where I got the modded bios because I can't seem to find it again - perhaps wherever I got it isn't around anymore. Extensive searching led me here though, so I have hope.

As I said above I did something absentminded and dumb - I opened up this Z87-K intending to add a video card, and completely spaced out on the fact that the machine had been happily booting from an M2 - pci adapter card in the yellow x16 slot for like 3 years *from the M2-pci card in the other x16 (the yellow in this case) slot* that I just took out like an idiot. It's a machine in a rack mount case, and a wee hours of the AM bleary eyed glance around the interior led me to believe that the SATA cables running up into the front of the chassis must be for the boot SATA drive buried in there. They weren't. :(

Obviously the machine didn't boot and dropped into the bios util. OH Duh...this little card right here in my lap is what it boots from, I exclaimed while slapping my tired forehead. Pulled the other video card, put back in the nvme adapter, started it up.

nothing. dropped back into the bios. at this point it all comes flooding back to me: "I should see 'PATA' as a boot option in here somewhere - it probably blew it out when it tried to start and couldn't find the card."

There's no trace of a PATA device as a boot option. It's as if the BIOS has returned to the previously un-modded state, and has no idea what this NVME card is now that it had been happily and very zippily running off of for like years now.

Okay...search search search, and I end up here. And somewhat overjoyed to land here, because this is like the only search result that leads to someone talking about the *actual* Z87-K...not the 'deluxe' or the 'pro' or the 'C' or some other flavor. But THE motherboard in question.

Unfortunately, in trying to use ez-flash to load the Z87 file here, I get the security error.

So my question is this, and it comes in two parts: part 1) is there an updated / different version of this patched file that does *not* trip this security failure? and part 2) if not, does that mean I absolutely must follow the whole "get a freedos version and make a bootable usb stick with a bunch of other tools loaded, and go thru the process all while trying to extrapolate what i'm doing from a guide written for a different manufacturer's mobo?"

One thing that's tripped me up, and it may be a side effect of dealing with much newer asus bios tools that seem to feature prominently the ability to back up your current bios before reading in a new one, or even have two versions loaded and switch back and forth or "fail back" between them. The whole "ez-flash 2" experience doesn't seem to feature such an ability or at least make it easy on you...

If you read all this I truly appreciate it, and hope it's a quick and easy thing to nudge me the right direction here. I really need this box back up and running as soon as I can possibly get it there - it will soon become a slow moving work disaster for me! :P

Happy New Year!

WM

(edit: Asus Z87-K mobo, was using a modded 1402 but now seems to have lost it's mod, and the "ME Version" lists 9.0.30.1482)

@wmldwilly Try the headless rom file attached which had a link in post #4 of this thread.

jiraiya78 had some success with this link to bypass security

https://www.bios-mods.com/forum/Thread-G...res-UEFI-Aptio4

Give that a go and see if you have better luck getting out of the bios woods

POST #1 edited with updated UEFI/BIOS dated Oct. 10 2020


Cheers

so to make sure I understand - that "headless" file isn't readable by the bios flash utility, and the only route to installing that is via the other 11-step recipe with freedos and the AMI direct flashing tool and all the rest? (it sounds painful already...)

I'm feeling pretty sad I didn't tuck away a usb stick with that other mod I found somewhere some time back that "just worked" ... where's that "shoot myself in the foot" emoji? :P

Thanks,

WM

...and what a weird mystery. somehow the bios has "failed back" to it's can't-boot-from-nvme-pci-card state, but i can still enter the shell and see/browse the directories of the drive. it's the only drive in the machine at the moment, and in the interim i'm tossing a sata drive in and installing an OS just to get the machine up again and will take it from there. Ugh.

@wmldwilly Just carefully follow the steps in the link provided in post #17 and that should keep you out of harms way...

Wishing you much success!

Do you have any error while you are using your SSD.
I flashed the headless and get dead mouse/keyboard several times aday in both ubuntu and windows.

I get it the headless flash successful.
I can boot from the drive.

However, I got problem with both Windows and Ubuntu. I got my mouse and keyboard dead pretty frequently, then I have to turn the power off. It is not a blue death screen. the keyboard and mouse just stop working.

Edited: I have this works now. Find the following comments for detail.
Confirmed: it booted and works now.

U can have an HW issue with USB ports power/controller... dont believe this as anything to do with bios, since ur experiencing the same symptom in both OS.
Does it stop working in UEFI bios environment? Other ports? Do u see the devices getting disconnected in windows device manager?

@wmldwilly @laiviet2811 @jiraiya78 @Scardigne @izajasz @MeatWar @cheerat

Okay, updated microcode to v28 and EFI ROM updates to UEFI/BIOS found on post #1 and #17 for your pleasure and enjoyment.

latest edit Oct 10, 2020

It seems like a hardware problem.

I had my Nvidia 1080 Ti plugged to the PCI-E 2.0 x4 (which connect through southbridge) and the PCIe NVMe connected through PCI-E 3.0 x16. This seems to bother the southbridge.

I switch these two cards and have them worked well now.

Many thanks.

@laiviet2811

Typically the graphics card always populates the first PCIe x16 slot for maximum throughput; which is also the default setting; unless you are using the graphics portion of your CPU. Of course not the case here when you have an NVidia 1080Ti....
NVMe typically only needs PCIe x4 slot to work correctly but in your case it is only PCIe 2.0 which is a limitation of the board.

Glad you sorted it all out

Cheers

I just need that GPU for displaying and debugging some deep learning code before deploying them to the cluster for long training. I have no interest with gaming.
That's why I choose to maximize the speed of the harddrive (as PCIe 2.0 x4 throttle my samsung NVME to ~1.5GB/s). when I tested with PCIe x16 slot (it use x4 only) I got ~ 2.5GB/s.

Anw, 1.5GB/s is still fast enough as long as it does not stop working randomly.

Really appreciate your effort.

@laiviet2811

1.5 GB/s is still plenty fast compared to even a SATA SSD which tops out at 600MB/s.
By that metric you are still 2.5X faster...

Even if you dropped in an RTX 3090 graphics card for more AI learning fun the PCIe slot wouldn't be saturated as it barely swamps out PCIe 2.0.

See this video for a comparison of the RTX 3090 in PCIe 2.0, 3.0, 4.0

Why PCIe 4.0 Doesn't matter for Gamers... Yet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPTWtp5CnE4

The headroom on the PCIe 2.0 x16 slot is enough to accommodate the 4K bandwidth at even 144Hz depending on your monitor.

In any case enjoy!

Cheers

@hancor thanks for updating the bios for this board in Oct2020! Really appreciate it! Works well with my WD SN750 NVMe drive & Big Sur build!

Hi All, Ive followed the amazing step by step guide to generate a Mod Bios on my ASUS Z87-K_UEFI_1402 to allow me to have full NVMe support so I can use the PCIe slot to load windows 10 as an upgrade. (#1 | [Guide] How to get full NVMe support for all Systems with an AMI UEFI BIOS)

I have named the mod exactly as the downloaded latest ASUS Bios, ie (Z87-K-ASUS-1402.CAP) And then attempted to use the advanced tool in the bios to load this modded bios. I get the "security verification failed". Ive enjoyed the learning curve thus far and am highly appreciative of the guidance, but I've hit a wall here can anyone help me in this regard.

The tools I used to make the mod were the UIEFITool_v0.28.0 and the inserted DXE was the NvmExpressDxe_Small. I used the Hex Editor Neo finally, verified the alteration and then saved using the same name with .CAP
I did not use the FD44Editot_0.9.2_win as I was going to use the tool facility in the existing Bios to flash the USB. Did I miss a step here ?

In any event, Ive hit a wall, and Ive got 6 machines that I have to load windows 10 onto the PCIe slots .. else Ill have to return the NVMe M.2 cards and use the old 2.5 inch sata options. Any help would be appreciated. I can send across the Modded Bios as well ?

Sincerely