Clutching at straws ?..... SM951 support in Z87m board

[The_Gunslinger]

As per the title really, am i clutching at straws hoping for support of the Samsung SM951 in the Z87m OC Formula BIOS ?


Here's the system specs.....

Motherboard - Z87m OC Formula, BIOS P1.90
CPU - Intel 4790K
HDD - Nil
mSATA - 500gb Samsung 850 Evo

PCIe_3 populated with an Addonics AD3M2SPX4 - (M2 PCIe + 2 M2 SATA) adapter card, mounted to this I have 1x Samsung m.2 250gb 850 Evo SSD, 1 spare SATA m.2 slot, and on the reverse side, a 250gb Samsung SM951 (x4 speed Gen3.0 PCIe)

Intended OS - Windows 7 Pro 64bit

Problem is, as i'm sure a lot of you are aware,the SM951, like it's predecessor the XP941 carries no opROM making it wholly reliant on the motherboard BIOS to support it, the model i have is AHCI compliant.

I had hoped, that because the BIOS for the board is fairly new, that they might have added support, like a number of others have, I opted for this one and not the z97 because it's basically better for my needs, and the m.2 implementation is not good enough on the z97 version for the x4 Gen3 device.

Unfortunately, whilst the BIOS "system browser" sees the AHCI controller installed in PCIe_3 and windows setup sees it, and will install to it, it is not bootable, nor fully recognised in the BIOS, i have tried a number of the tricks around altering or disabling CSM, and have tried installing form a UEFI prepared Flashdrive setup, and i've forced it into UEFI and GPT mode manually from CD as well, all with the same "no boot device detected" message.


So, can anyone help ? is there a beta BIOS floating around i could use?... or will there ever be one ? or should i just give up and buy a Kingston HyperX x4 Gen2 PCIe m.2 ?

Thanks for any help

[The_Gunslinger]

Re: Clutching at straws ?..... SM951 support in Z87m board

Just wanted to update this thread.

I got a reply from my tech support request ticket, with a modified BIOS supplied :)

woot............... Samsung SM951 now booting happily in UEFI mode and Windows 7 64bit



Thank you so much Tech Support :)

[ASRock TSD-Eddy]

Re: Clutching at straws ?..... SM951 support in Z87m board

Dear The_Gunslinger,

Please try below BIOS L1.83A to to support PCIE to M.2 adapter card.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0D...ew?usp=sharing

If any please feel free to let me know.
ASRock TSD
Eddy

[The_Gunslinger]

Re: Clutching at straws ?..... SM951 support in Z87m board

Hi Eddy,

Yup, that looks like the one they sent me in the email, seems to be good, i will try and get back to it tonight when i get home form work if not too tired, and reset the CSM settings (i changed storage to UEFI only) and apparently leaving them all at Legacy only was the better idea.

I also want to test boot from DVD or Pendrive, because last night it failed on that, but that could be my settings, when i hit F11 and selected my UEFI boot flashdrive for windows setup, it beeped and skipped it :P

also, while i have your attention, what's "Instant Flash ME" compaired to "Instant Flash" i have both listed in the BIOS.

I will also hash compare the 2 files tonight as well



Point to note, whilst both yourself and the email i got refer to this as BIOS L1.83A there is no "L" in the file name, or referenced in the BIOS itself when flashed.

[robman1]

Re: Clutching at straws ?..... SM951 support in Z87m board

I also am doing a build on the AsRock Z97M OC Formula with i5-4690K, PowerColor Radeon R9 285, and a Samsung SM951 128GB M.2 SSD, MZHPV128HDGM OEM. I know the M.2 port limits the SM951 and I want it to be my dedicated bootable hard drive. Can I get a recommendation on cheapest M.2 to PCIE adapter to best do the job? Also, does the board have enough PCIE 3.0 to fulfill both the SM951 and my R9 285 max potential? Will I get that holy grail right now of 2200/1400 read and write speeds? Rob

[The_Gunslinger]

Re: Clutching at straws ?..... SM951 support in Z87m board

I havent looked at all of the Specs for your board, i did however look at it before buying the Z87 version, and for my needs, the Z87 made more sense because the m.2 socket as you said does not run full speed, also the rear panel layout/options i preferred on the Z87 and it had the onboard mSATA and mPCIe slots.

As for adaptors, there are a couple out there now, many are full Gen3 x4 speed compatible, but you must check, others come with heatsinks to attach and help cool the drives, this is important, because m.2 drives can get hot, the SM951 is considerably better than it's predecessor however. I did not use a heatsink, i did however ensure airflow over it at all times.


The adapter i used came from Addonics, and the only complaint i have, is that the motherboard BIOS does not route data information to the case LED header when using a PCIe based option, even on the modified/updated BIOS i have, and the card has nowhere to plug in the case LED wire, it does have LEDs on the rear panel though

here's their product range
Addonics Category: M2 (NGFF) SSD Adapters

and here is the one i used, you will notice that the card actually carries 1x PCIe based card, and two SATA based ones, all of the power comes from the x4 PCIe slot, and the SATA m.2 drives connect via regular cables. very nice design if you ask me!
Addonics Product: M2 PCIe SSD Adapter PRO



and here's my build log, plenty of pictures in there :)

Replacement machine for Dad