Thanks Fernando, my mb was a pain and I almost gave up.
At the end of the day I used the modified bios but had limited luck, even doing everything you recommended. What eventually worked in the end was setting my bios to auto detect everything and that worked, even thou this seemed to completely contradict everything in your guide.

Thanks again.

Holy smokes this is a long thread! Anyways first post and wanted to thank Fernando for all of the hard work!
As an aside this is what I'm going to attempt.... To mod a Dell Precision T3610 bios to insert the NVME files. The T3610 is a odd one and fought me just to get the .hdr bios extracted from the exe. AMIUCP does not recognize the exe version at all like on many other Dell bios updates. I finally got it extracted though and the tools can all open the hdr file just fine. The T3610 used the C602 chipset (X79) and it has full UEFI support with secure mode, etc but simply does not have NVMe support. I also have a slightly newer T7910 which has the C610 (X99) chipset and it does have full NVMe support and works great. I actually have the quad port M.2 card from Dell in it. I was thinking on extracting the NVMe files from the T7910 and inserting that or using the generic NVMe files available from the links here. Just not sure which would be the better option. In the T3610 I can put an NVMe SSD in and install Windows 10 just fine onto it even but of course it will just not boot from it since the BIOS does not see it. Also annoyingly the T3610 BIOS stops on every boot complaining that it cannot find any installed hard drives unless a SATA hard drive is connected as well not too worried about that bit though as I will eventually install a spinner in it too. I actually have 4 of these T3610 machines that I'd like to update to NVMe SSD's.

I did do a search and cannot really find where anyone has done this on a Dell at all. I know others have done SLP/SLIC mods on Dells (I have in the past).

Once I get some more free time I'll update with the results. I'm not a total noob as I've done plenty of SLP bios mods but this will be my first try at adding an actual module like this and on a tricky Dell bios at that... :) Should be fun.

I will go ahead and give your method a try... :)

@Fernando,

Thanks as always for your helpful advice.

I tried my preferred option (cloned drive - Windows reinstall would take too long) and removed the GTX960. Result: IT BOOTED!

I used my Macrium Reflect UEFI boot USB to fix the EFI partition on the cloned NVMe install (I resized the Windows partition to use the extra space on the 250GB drive from the original 120GB SATA SSD). Unfortunately, Windows hung on start-up as the integrated Intel HD3000 graphics drivers were not installed; no logon screen so I couldn't get to Windows Update.

I reinstated the SATA SSD, rebooted, updated the HD3000 drivers via Windows Update (along with the other Patch Tuesday updates) and used Reflect to create a new SSD image which was then restored to the NVMe drive.

I then shut down the PC, unplugged the SATA SSD, booted with the Reflect UEFI USB and fixed the EFI partition again.
On normal restart, the system booted via NVMe with no issues, BIOS settings as you previously advised (limited though they are on this board).

HOWEVER, reinstating the discrete graphics card caused the same boot failure as before.

Therefore, I can only conclude that this board will not work with NVMe and a discrete graphics card in UEFI mode.

I may sell the discrete card and invest in some additional RAM to mitigate the use of the integrated graphics as the NVMe is now working and is noticeably faster in operation.

Hope this helps others with this issue.

Did you try a discrete card with your setup?

Best Regards,

@Iken,
As Fernando said, you have to do the proposed tests before to buy a new GPU card.
Your GTX960 card is a modern fully UEFI compliant card. Buying another more performant (expensive) card will not solve your problem.
On my Asus X99 I have a GTX980 coexisting with up to 4 NVMe devices (single or RAID organised). You have to check carefully the PCIe slot organisation, PCI lanes usage and BIOS settings.

@Fernando
@100PIER

Thanks for your replies.

100PIER: As I stated, I plan to buy additional RAM, not another graphics card; I may keep the GTX960, I may not (I haven't decided yet).
With all due respect, how can you compare a Z68 board with an X99? They are worlds apart both in age and in UEFI functionality; the Z68 doesn't even have full UEFI implementation as it was one of the earliest incarnations. I have researched this particular issue over two years via this excellent forum and my own investigation; I was only able to confirm in the last 48 hours or so as I've only just got the hardware to test with. I had an old Radeon card without UEFI compatibility when originally testing and the results with the GTX960 are almost identical.

PCIe16_3 on this board operates at a maximum of x4 and PCIe16_2 at x8; this is as per the manual. The optimum setup is using slot 1 and slot 2 as I had been using (each operating at PCIE 2.0 x8 maximum, though slot 1 or 2 with NVMe drops to PCIe2.0 x4); using PCIe16_3 at x4 speed (it defaults to x1) disables both PCIEx1 slots, USB3 ports 3 & 4 and the eSATA port which is no use to me as my external HDD is connected via eSATA and I would like to keep all USB3 ports available. Using 1 & 2 disables nothing and operates at highest performance.

I have already tried the GTX960 in slot 2 with the NVMe in slot 1 - same result, NO BOOT.

I respectfully stand by my statement unless corrected by others' tests on the same board; using PCIex16_3 was discounted at the very beginning - too much is disabled and the low positioning of the slot in my installation negates proper cooling of the NVMe card/SSD and is unusable if the GTX960 is installed in slot 2 (dual-slot graphics card).

Best Regards

Fernando can you check this bios for me please: https://mega.nz/#!CU1hwSBS!vLC7VFHnWAUQw...BtX9s79Fpp7b8mc

Zitat von Fernando im Beitrag #2605

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@i2ocketron:
Your modded BIOS will not work, because you didn't insert the NVMe module beyond the undermost of the listed DXE Drivers.
The undermost listed module is named "PcieLaneDXE". So you have to right-click onto the GUID of that undermost module and to choose the option "Insert after....".

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Hello, all. I have the Asrock X79 Extreme4-m motherboard plus Samsung 960pro and trying to make it bootable. I have checked all nvme dxes that found on this forum, but unsuccessfully. After flashing modded bios I found the device with name "PATA:", but it's still not bootable. Before the 960pro I have checked the previous 950pro ssd and it was bootable so I decided to upgrade.

Is there any owners of X79 mobo and 960pro that can boot linux on it?

I cant find this "PcieLaneDXE" in my bios followed the directions, but i still cant seem to find it in my bios 5001 R4F mb help!!