@Fernando @CodeRush @Morlock
Want to stop for a minute and say thanks to all of you guys.
After I've bricked my mobo I bought SPI programmer. Flashed bios and viola. Now I'm writing you from machine with NVMe SSD =) A different experience I'd say.

Mobo is Asus P8Z77-V LK and Samsung 960 EVO SSD. Asus Hyper M.2 X4 mini adapter inserted into PCIe 3 x4
Mobo doesn't have USB Flashback feature.

So some things that could help:

0) EZ Flash doesn't work due to security reasons. Doesn't matter what file you want to run. .CAP .ROM .BIN. With proper file name or not.
1) I've tried almost all things to flash modded bios and no one helped.
- AFUDOS (/p /b /k didn't work at all due to security reasons). /GAN was successful but modification were not added.
- Reverting to earliest bios version and tried to flash it since there were some thoughts about added security in later releases
- Playing with .cap .rom .bin files
- Flashing with different caps (backup and official. since sizes were different)
- Don't flash with AFUDOS /gan not latest bios. That's the one who bricked my bios =)

2) Added NVMe module version 3. Samsung Magician results: 3150MBps read and 1740MBps write. Latest NVMe and Samsung drivers. Latest Win 10 version (insider preview)
3) Was succeed with Official .CAP latest (v.1402) + NVMe module v3 and then converted to .bin -> SPI Programmer
4) Cheapest CH341A SPI programmer was used. Around $3.
5) Turned off all fast boot & Security Boot and all stuff mentioned in article.
6) Make sure you run Win install in UEFI mode. It took me about 10mins to understand what's going wrong and why I'm facing black screen.

Zitat von Paulos7 im Beitrag #2443

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In answer to your first question, if you have an Ivy Bridge CPU, make sure the PCIe slot that you put the NVMe adapter card in is configured in the BIOS for PCIe 3.0. Sandy Bridge CPU’s won’t give you the PCIe 3.0 speed you need to get the full performance of the SSD.

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@Mountainlifter

Your motherboard’s manual shows PCIe slot 2 as “PCIe 3.0/2.0 x8/x4”, so it shouldn’t only give you Gen2 x2. Did you try the video card in #2 and the SSD in #1 just to see what it would do?

The only thing I can think of is the way you modded the BIOS. You stated “I modded its latest .cap bios file with the Nvme.ffs, NVMEINT13.ffs and NvmeSmm.ffs extracted from the ASUS MAXIMUS VII FORMULA Z97 motherboard's latest .cap file”. You should try Fernando’s guide and only integrate the "NvmExpressDxE_2" or "NvmExpressDxe_3" module using UEFITool rather than MMTool. I used MMTool the first time I modded my BIOS, but I found that UEFITool was easier and more efficient to use. The modules that you extracted from the Z97 BIOS may have introduced the issue you’re experiencing.

Also, have you checked with Asus for a BIOS to support your Z77 motherboard? I had to try all of ASRock’s worldwide offices until I found that the Taiwan office had the latest working BIOS with NVMe support for my Z77 motherboard.

Zitat von Fernando im Beitrag #2448

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@Mountainlifter:
I suspect, that it is not your M.2>PCIe adapter, but your graphics card, which lowers the performance of the related PCIe slot. Maybe there are not enough lanes available for your NVMe SSD.

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Zitat von Paulos7 im Beitrag #2449

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@Mountainlifter

Your motherboard’s manual shows PCIe slot 2 as “PCIe 3.0/2.0 x8/x4”, so it shouldn’t only give you Gen2 x2. Did you try the video card in #2 and the SSD in #1 just to see what it would do?

The only thing I can think of is the way you modded the BIOS. You stated “I modded its latest .cap bios file with the Nvme.ffs, NVMEINT13.ffs and NvmeSmm.ffs extracted from the ASUS MAXIMUS VII FORMULA Z97 motherboard's latest .cap file”. You should try Fernando’s guide and only integrate the "NvmExpressDxE_2" or "NvmExpressDxe_3" module using UEFITool rather than MMTool. I used MMTool the first time I modded my BIOS, but I found that UEFITool was easier and more efficient to use. The modules that you extracted from the Z97 BIOS may have introduced the issue you’re experiencing.

Also, have you checked with Asus for a BIOS to support your Z77 motherboard? I had to try all of ASRock’s worldwide offices until I found that the Taiwan office had the latest working BIOS with NVMe support for my Z77 motherboard.

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@Mountainlifter

If it did the same thing with the unmodded BIOS, it would seem that it's not a result of the mod. If you had SLI at Gen3 x8 and x8 then a lack of PCIe lanes isn't the problem.

Did you try it in each of the 3 PCIe slots?
Have you checked the Gen3 Preset option shown in the picture (I couldn't find it in the manual)?
I personally haven't heard of the cheaper PCIe adapters not working in Gen3, unless it's made to support M.2, but not NVMe (?). If your other video card had no problem in PCIe slot 2 @ Gen3 @ x8, to me it would imply it's the adapter.

@Mountainlifter

Zitat von Mountainlifter im Beitrag #2450

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EDIT: Also, I never bothered to check if ASUS released an updated BIOS. It is certainly not on the official support page of the ASUS M-V FORMULA Z77 motherboard. I will try searching for this as well but so far, I have only noticed ASRock owners say that they were given an updated BIOS.

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Zitat von Paulos7 im Beitrag #2451

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@Mountainlifter

If it did the same thing with the unmodded BIOS, it would seem that it's not a result of the mod. If you had SLI at Gen3 x8 and x8 then a lack of PCIe lanes isn't the problem.

Did you try it in each of the 3 PCIe slots?
Have you checked the Gen3 Preset option shown in the picture (I couldn't find it in the manual)?
I personally haven't heard of the cheaper PCIe adapters not working in Gen3, unless it's made to support M.2, but not NVMe (?). If your other video card had no problem in PCIe slot 2 @ Gen3 @ x8, to me it would imply it's the adapter.

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Hi @Paulos7 and @Fernando

I solved the issue. Long story short. It was the adapter that was the problem. Serves me right for trying to cut corners using cheap knockoffs.

New adapter: https://i.imgur.com/QBZwrAt.jpg This is the ASUS HYPER M.2 X4 MINI CARD. https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboard-Acce...2_X4_MINI_CARD/
Old adapter: https://i.imgur.com/2MbGLlA.jpg Some cheap knockoff device. Claims NVMe support and all that.

So, today evening I first removed all my PCI-E devices (GPU and Audio card) and tried the SSD (with the old adapter) in each of the three X16 slots one by one. The first slot gave me Gen3 x1, the second one gave me Gen3 x2 and the last one gave me Gen2 x2 (as seen in the BIOS and samsung magician). This seemed so strange to me that I decided to guess that it was the adapter that was the problem.

I quickly went out and purchased the high quality ASUS adapter and it was immediately detected as Gen3 x4 in the BIOS and samsung magician. See here: https://i.imgur.com/MKPXJ3b.jpg Problem Solved!

With the knockoff adapter I had obtained Sequential Read speed of 1549MB/s and Sequential Write speed of 1478MB/s.
Now, I have a Sequential Read speed of 1906MB/s and Sequential Write speed of 1671MB/s. It is still not where it should be but atleast the PCIE gen and speed are correct now.

Thanks to you both for your help and wonderful support.

Zitat von Paulos7 im Beitrag #2452

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ASRock doesn't show the updated NVMe supported BIOS' for older motherboards on their website either. I asked their tech support in USA, Europe, and Taiwan, and all three had a different BIOS. USA and Europe had M.2 support, but only the Taiwan version had NVMe support. And though the ASRock modded BIOS worked like it should and even showed the name of the SSD in the Boot section of the BIOS (you still have to select "Windows Boot Manager"), it doesn't work any better than BIOS I modded using Fernando's guide.

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Zitat von ASUS Technical Support

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Thank you for contacting ASUS Mail Support.
My name is Jeremy and it is my pleasure to assist you with your enquiry.
In regards to your inquiry, we regret to inform you that currently we do not have any latest BIOS update as per link here: www.asus.com/sg/Motherboards/MAXIMUS_V_F...pDesk_Download/
If you have any further questions, comments, or concerns please do not hesitate to let us know. We will be more than happy to assist you.
Thank you and have a nice day!

Best regards,
Jeremy
Customer Service Center, ASUSTek Computer Inc., Asus Technical Support Site: http://support.asus.com

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I really appreciate everyones work on this (especially Fernando!), im just looking for a bit of clarification. Im trying to enable bootable support for a Samsung 960 EVO on an ASRock Z68E3G3. In the past I have had great success with modifying the BIOS on this (and other) boards, but ive always used a Samsung PM851 as my weapon of choice. Apparently I got lucky, as that SSD probobly has its own OROM supplied onboard. On the first page there are links two two .rar's containing NVME_DXE files. One is labeled _2 and the other is _3, what is the difference between these packages, and which should I try to use to get this drive bootable? I saw on page 90 of this thread that someone with a very similar board to mine was able to get it working as a boot drive by using the _2 package, but im wondering if that is still the recommended approach for my situation.

Thank you


EDIT - For clarification, the method I used to get the PM851 working was to use AptioV to insert NVMe modules extracted directly from an ASRock Z97 Extreme6/AC, by inserting them into the CSMCORE section of the ROM. Would these DXE files be inserted in a similar way, and would I also still need to insert nvme, nvmesmm and NVMEINT13?

@Mountainlifter

Glad to hear you got it working. Yeah, it's that old saying, "You get what you pay for".

Like you said, your read speed is still low. I know that your BIOS shows Gen3 x4, but I've had trouble in the past with "Auto" settings, including my Z77 board when it came to PCIe slot settings. I had an issue with setting the PCIe slots to "Auto" instead of Gen2 (560Ti) and my video card would not work at all - until I set it manually (the only time Intel's integrated graphics was a good thing to have on the 3770K). I could be wrong, but the "Preset" setting looks like it may be similar to an auto setting. Is there no way to set each individual slot setting manually, without lumping them all together in a preset setting? Just a thought.

Also, you are using the Samsung NVMe driver in Windows, right? I understand that using the Microsoft driver would cause the speed issues you have.

Thanks for the reply, I made a new BIOS based off of a clean Z68E3G3 BIOS and the DXE_3 package you supplied, im waiting on a new adapter card to come in, so ill let you know how it goes once that arrives.

Hi @Paulos7 I am actually not using the Auto setting anywhere. Let me clarify with some pictures.

I have three Gen3.0 capable PCI-E X16 slots (Capital X for size, small x for speed henceforth). (I am on the i7 3770K by the way).

Pic1: https://i.imgur.com/KYjsoxW.jpg In this picture, in the BIOS, I have clicked on the "Link Speed" setting for slot PCIE_X16_1. This pops us a window where I can choose between Auto, Gen1, Gen2 or Gen3. For each of the three slots, I always set this manually to match the gen of the device that is inserted in that slot. When I had set "Auto" for slots PCIE_X16_1 and PCIE_X16_2, SLi gave me stuttering and poor performance. Since then I've been setting this option manually.

What I cannot set manually are the speeds within that gen. The speed can be seen as x8 for my GPU and as x4 for my 960EVO above the black selection boxes in the above-linked picture. These speeds are set automatically and I have no control over them. It was this speed that I was referring to when I said that the knockoff adapter was setting itself to x2.

Pic2: https://i.imgur.com/77rRY15.jpg In this picture, I have clicked on the "Gen3 Preset" option. In the popup window, I can choose between Auto, Preset1, Preset2, and Preset3. I have no idea what the differences between them are.

Pic3: https://i.imgur.com/vD0p922.jpg The description for the "Gen3 Preset" option in the BIOS only states "Selecting Different Presets may improve the stability of PCIE Gen 3.0". I just leave it on Preset3 for no particular reason.

Finally, yes, I have the Samsung NVMe driver installed and I have verified that samsung's NVMe driver is used under DeviceManager>StorageControllers.

EDIT: So, the reason for the slow read speed I am getting could be because I cloned the drive. Or it could be because I have used up 90% of the capacity already. Or both. (Some users have reported problems with speed drops from cloning and capacity here: http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-3...low-speeds.html). I am not completely sure that these are the reasons, however.

EDIT by Fernando: Unneeded fully quoted post removed (to save space)