Samsung 970 Evo Plus i7-4790k, gigabyte z97x-gaming-5 setup boot issues

[keithth]

I have a previously very stable system consisting of an i7-4790k, gigabyte z97x-gaming-5, 32gb ddr3, 10gbps Mellanox NIC, using integrated video now.

I pulled my 750ti to make room on the main PCIE bus for this Samsung 970 Evo Plus. I'm using it with an m2 x4 adapter here which is a "Lycom DT-120 M.2 PCIe to PCIe 3.0 x4 Adapter (Support M.2 PCIe 2280, 2260, 2242)" adapter.

The Nvme SSD, once the machine boots, works perfectly fine and I'm seeing 3200-3400 MB/s which is amazing.

The problem is that the presence of the card clearly destabilizes the startup process. The machine struggles to even get to the BIOS screen. This is from a cold boot or from a restart, the machine hangs on most attempts at a black screen. If it makes it to the BIOS, then the machine starts into Windows 10 just fine. And continues to work.

I haven't tried the nvme directly in the M.2 slot, mainly because it's performance limited at 10gbps, a mere fraction of the capability.

I upgraded the BIOS weeks ago to the latest version, that's been stable.

My first thoughts go to that $20 adapter card. I'm assuming that even though a newer product, that Samsung has done their due diligence testing --- all their other SSD-related(SATA) products work fine for me, in the same machine. There's really not much happening ON the card M.2 socket is wired into the PCIE interface.

What's the next step? Try it directly in the M.2 interface and eliminate the card? Are there better quality adapter cards?

Thanks

 

[keithth]

Otherwise known as, "I've tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas!"

For Gigabyte AMI Bios F7, what options should I be looking at to disable?

Secure Boot?
CSM?
Fast boot?
CPU C-states?

I imaged my original SATA SSD over to the NVMe. Of course the darn thing wouldn't boot initially --- got tons of various blue screens including "INACCESSIBLE BOOT DEVICE" and others. Tried a hundred solutions, eventually what worked was booting into safe mode, and then rebooting. This is the first time that imaging a HDD/SSD/VM over to hardware, and simply booting up didn't work. I've done it cross-hardware, virtual to physical, etc -- Windows 10 is pretty good about recognizing that the hardware is changed and reconfiguring itself.

It's Windows 10. Because the machine has trouble booting, I don't leave it with the card installed.

The fact that it often doesn't get to the BIOS splash screen is concerning.....I'm not sure how much BIOS settings actually affect the INITIAL BOOT to BIOS.....much of it has to do with what happens AFTER BIOS loads...

Need some help!

 

[keithth]

Help you ask and help you shall receive sir:

Here are your custom BIOS options specific to your application to make it function:

Boot Priority #1: Windows Boot Manager(Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus)
Windows 8 Features: Windows 8. (there is no Windows 10 option)
CSM Support: Always
Boot Mode Selection: UEFI and Legacy
Storage Boot Option Control: UEFI First
Secure Boot: Enabled (Although the status above says Disabled)
Secure Boot Mode: Standard

This works like a champ.

 

[Jacder]

Hi Keithth, I have the same configuration (i7-4790k, gigabyte z97x-gaming-5, 32gb ddr3) then yours and want to install a Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus on a PCIE adapter card to boot from it. It seems to work OK for you. Is it still the case? If so, would you please tell me what you have done to make it work like a champ. Tell me all the process please and not only the final settings. It would be a great help for me. Thanks.