Hi, everyone.

I'm trying to figure out if modding my BIOS is worth it for me. I'm running on an ASUS P9X79 LE, currently using SATA SSDs, but would love to try some PCIe/NVMe. (Actually, question here - I know the X79 boards don't support NVMe, but do they support just regular PCIe SSDs? Do such a thing exist, and is that worth it?)

Working on grasping the OP's instructions, but before I start taking the plunge - if I get a Samsung 950 SSD, can I plug that right into my PCIe x1 slot? Or am I bottlenecking myself with that one and I should get an adaptor for an x16 slot?

Do you think the performance gain would be worth it, or should I just wait until I build a new machine, one that would obviously have native NVMe support?

If I screw things up, can I just re-flash my BIOS from the flashback port, or is there a chance I'd do irreversible damage to my board?

Thanks for any help you can get me on this, it's much appreciated.

Many thanks Fernando for your guide.
I have a Gigabyte GA-H61M-S1 motherboard, and bought a Samsung EVO 960 with a PCI adapter.
Gigabyte told me that it was not compatible with NVMe boot, but fortunately I found your forum.
Although modifying BIOS sounded frightening, your guide was very easy to follow.
I tried first to clone my old HDD with Samsung tools, but I was not able to boot from the image.
After a clean install (which I do with Clover, but now am not sure it was necesary) the SSD is working perfectly and made a huge difference in speed.
I have made a contribution so that you can keep your forum growing.
Ramon.

Fernando,

It might help a lot, to all of us, and to your extraordinary work, if win-raid makes a collection of modded BIOSes available to all people interested in implementing BIOS upgrade with 3 NVME moduls, and other smart BIOS updates and improvements.

@Fernando

I tried to add a Samsung 960 EVO NVME drive as a bootable drive on my Asus Maximus VI Hero (Z87). The bios version I downloaded from Asus.com is 1603. I can upgrade my mobo bios (1301) to 1603 via EZ flash by using the original 1603 bios. However, I kept getting "security verification failed" messages via EZ Flash 2 when I tried to upgrade it with the modded bios (NVME added). I also tried USB Bios Flashback but the light blinked for 5-6 times and then it kept on forever... I am not sure what I did wrong, is there any advice on solving this problem?

@polaris
Check file name for EZ Flash (and ".xxx" ending as well).

@agentx007
The file name is M6H.cap, is that correct?

@agentx007
The problem is when I use EZ flash 2 in the mobo, I can upgrade the bios to 1603, no matter what file name is as long as it ends with .cap and it's not modded (directly from asus.com). If the bios file is modded by adding nvme, it can't be done due to "security verification failed". Then I moved to USB flashback option, but never successeded no matter if the file is original or modded. Headache...

http://event.asus.com/2012/mb/USB_BIOS_Flashback_GUIDE/

If light started blinking, you should wait till it stops :)

@agentx007

Thanks for the article. I've checked that too.

quoted from the page you shared: "If the light flashes for five seconds and turns stable, USB BIOS Flashback is not operating properly. This may be caused by improper installation of the portable storage device, an error in the file name, or incompatibility in file formats. If this is the case, restart the system until the light clears, and check the file name and format."

I had exactly the same issue here...but I could not find a way to solve it.

Hello again.

Is there any chance to add NVMe 1.3 module?
Check out this news - new NVMe controllers!
Link: http://www.anandtech.com/show/11764/sili...ssd-controllers

Is it possible to use these M.2 NVMe 1.3 drives on modded motherboards with NVMe 1.2 module?

Hello

How were you able to do that, could you show me how you did it or do you have the mod file?
I also have a ASUS Maximus V Formula, but I can't get it to work.