Question NVMe SSD compatibility issues with ASUS Z97 Sabertooth Mark 1

[rueffy]

Hi all,

I’ve been fighting a long battle trying to integrate the following hardware:

Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB NVMe 1.3 M.2
>> Via >>
Orico M.2 NVMe to PCI-e 3.0 x16 Expansion Card
>> Via >>
Asus Sabertooth Z97 Mark 1 Motherboard
>> To >>
Slot PCIEX16_2 (PCI Express 3.0/2.0 x16 slot)

I am running Windows 10, which has just been freshly reinstalled and updated to the latest revision with Windows Update.

The first step I did was update the firmware on the Z97 to enable NVMe compatibility, which upon its release did not support NVMe. The motherboard is now running Bios 2205 x64 (02/11/2015). The NVMe drive is visible in BIOS and displays as ‘Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB’.

Without installing any Samsung drivers and instead using the Standard NVMe Express Controller Driver provided with Windows (as per Device Manager), the NVMe drive attempts to initialize when Disk Management is opened, however any attempt to initialize is met with the “A Device Which Does Not Exist Was Specified” error.

Moving on, I installed the Samsung NVMe Driver (3.3). When Disk Management is opened, “Connecting to Virtual Disk Service” hangs. In fact, the entire machine has problems (cannot restart or shut-down without having to hold the power button). Basic troubleshooting (e.g. ensuring the virtual machine was running in services.msc) didn’t yield any results.

Any advice on troubleshooting steps or the way forward would be appreciated.

Thanks,
rueffy.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Any advice on troubleshooting steps or the way forward would be appreciated.

Update BIOS to latest non-beta version.
Version 2702 seems to be the latest.

 

[rueffy]

Update BIOS to latest non-beta version.
Version 2702 seems to be the latest.

Thanks for your input SkyNetRising, I updated to 2702 and re-tested using both drivers (Windows native and Samsung), same results.

rueffy.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Can you show screenshot from Disk Management?
Also screenshot from Device Manager - disk drives and storage controllers sections expanded.
(upload to imgur.com and post link)

 

[rueffy]

Can you show screenshot from Disk Management?

Can do, I assume you'd prefer to see Disk Management without the Samsung Driver installed so you can actually see the drives I have installed (not the Connecting to Virtual Disk Service message hanging)?

 

[SkyNetRising]

Can do, I assume you'd prefer to see Disk Management without the Samsung Driver installed so you can actually see the drives I have installed (not the Connecting to Virtual Disk Service message hanging)?

Both, if possible.

 

[rueffy]

Both, if possible.

Device Manager (Without Samsung Driver)

Disk Management (Without Samsung Driver)

Device Manager (With Samsung Driver)

Disk Management (With Samsung Driver)

 

[SkyNetRising]

You could try with a different PCIE M.2 adapter.

But it looks like your 970 evo is faulty.

 

[rueffy]

For those who may encounter this issue in the future. I believe this was simply the result of hardware incompatibility between the dated motherboard and the newer Samsung NVMe drive. I suspect the Samsung NVMe (via the Orico adapter) required a minimum PCIe 4.0 slot.

I purchased an older NVMe SSD (Gigabyte AORUS PCIe NVMe 512GB SSD) designed specifically for use via a PCIe interface (no adapter required). The OEM also explicitly states that the drive supports PCIe 3.0, the highest version of PCIe slot on the Z97 Mark 1.

The drive worked from the moment in was plugged in and has been running my O/S and other applications with exceptional speed. The older NVMe PCIe SSDs probably won't be around for much longer, I was lucky to get one of the last in stock at my local retailer.