# M.2 SSD on older motherboard



## suraswami (Dec 25, 2019)

Hi,

I just finished upgrading my main PC with 32GB Ram and installed W10 pro on 2.5" 240GB SSD.  All configured and good.

Question:  Motherboard (Gigabyte 990FX-UD3 v4.0) doesn't have M.2 slot.  Can I buy one of those PCI-E cards, stick the M.2 SSD on it and use it to boot windows?  If so I can clone the 240GB  SSD to the M.2 and enjoy the speed of M.2.






						Amazon.com: M.2 NVME to PCIe 3.0 x4 Adapter with Aluminum Heatsink Solution: Computers & Accessories
					

Buy M.2 NVME to PCIe 3.0 x4 Adapter with Aluminum Heatsink Solution: Serial Adapters - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases



					www.amazon.com
				




Thanks,


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## Static~Charge (Dec 25, 2019)

Not as a boot drive. Your BIOS doesn't support NVMe booting.


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## hat (Dec 25, 2019)

I'm not sure how much the BIOS matters? Our very own @Tomgang I believe used a PCI-E expansion card for an NVMe drive and was able to boot from it on an old x58 board.


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## suraswami (Dec 25, 2019)

Static~Charge said:


> Not as a boot drive. Your BIOS doesn't support NVMe booting.



Anything different for NVMe drives, they will be seen different?  not as another drive?


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## Static~Charge (Dec 25, 2019)

Google "Gigabyte 990FX-UD3 M.2 boot -Ultra" (to exclude the Ultra version of this motherboard, which has an M.2 slot) and see what people have reported. The board can use M.2 as a data drive but won't boot off it because the BIOS doesn't have support for that feature.


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## suraswami (Dec 25, 2019)

looks like somebody wrote a custom bios, don't know if I want to risk it by updating the bios






						Gigabyte 990fxa-ud3 rev4.0 custom bios
					

Gigabyte 990fxa-ud3 rev4.0 custom bios




					forum.giga-byte.co.uk
				




Discussion here









						GA-990FXA-UD3 Rev 4 and Samsung SM951 128GB NVMe M.2...
					

I plugged the SM951 into a 4x PCIe slot. BIOS does not see it F2 or F3. Windows 10 sees it but won't install to it (not bookable device).  If I install windows 10 on another drive and then clone to SM951 the bios sees it but won't boot off it even if I set as hard disk and first device in boot...




					www.overclock.net


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## Static~Charge (Dec 25, 2019)

Your motherboard has DualBIOS, so it would be worth a try. If the modded BIOS doesn't work out, you can tell the board to boot off the backup BIOS copy.


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## suraswami (Dec 25, 2019)

Static~Charge said:


> Your motherboard has DualBIOS, so it would be worth a try. If the modded BIOS doesn't work out, you can tell the board to boot off the backup BIOS copy.



Does the Backup Bios reset to factory installed bios (whatever came on the board) or to the latest official bios that I patched years ago (F3)?  Does it even save custom settings?

Just trying to understand how Backup bios works.

Also CPU fan speed settings are crap on this board, after wake up from sleep, CPU fan is reduced to about 200 RPM which raises the CPU temp.  It resets the fan speed after a reboot.  That is why I have to use Hibernate, that thrashes the SSD.


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## Static~Charge (Dec 25, 2019)

From Gigabyte's web site: "The second chip acts as a backup BIOS and has the factory default BIOS version on it." It would be nice if your current BIOS was copied to the backup chip, but it doesn't work that way.


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## HUSKIE (Dec 25, 2019)

[HOWTO] Get NVMe support on older motherboards!
					

Introduction During a recent build using an SM951 SSD, I had some problems getting either version (AHCI or NVMe) to boot on a Q77 chipset board. Now obviously the NVMe version wasn't going to work, but I was curious to find out why the AHCI version would not boot. So here's my adventure to share ...




					linustechtips.com


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## Frogger (Dec 25, 2019)

Static~Charge said:


> From Gigabyte's web site: "The second chip acts as a backup BIOS and has the factory default BIOS version on it." It would be nice if your current BIOS was copied to the backup chip, but it doesn't work that way.


You should be able to write to the back bios @ boot.. i think it's the F12


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## candle_86 (Jan 2, 2020)

Test out the custom bios, it's just an added module to support nvme, anything that supports uefi can have it added if you get the tools to add it to the bios.


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## Fry178 (Jan 2, 2020)

why would you need hibernation on 1. desktop, 2. when your using a ssd (short boot time).
never seen (desktop) machines last as long when using the feature (vs no sleep/hiber) ,
plus, i dont risk it crashing when there is grid/power issue, or (rare chance) bricking a drive when  power goes out.

to really make an impact you would need a nvme based m2, and a drive doing at least 1-2000MB/s on read to really make a difference.
access times wont really change much (vs ssds) and boot time isnt really that much shorter (10 s vs 20 s for me) unless system isnt messed up/infected etc.


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## Rob94hawk (Jan 2, 2020)

Would love to do this on my GIGABYTE GA-X38T-DQ6. But it's an expensive upgrade that I would never notice the speeds. 

Even with an SSD saturating the SATA II @ 3 Gb/s. It's not worth the cost.


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## Fry178 (Jan 2, 2020)

depends on what you do.
large amounts of data/lots of small files, or doing everything on one drive, maybe.


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## suraswami (Jan 2, 2020)

Fry178 said:


> why would you need hibernation on 1. desktop, 2. when your using a ssd (short boot time).
> never seen (desktop) machines last as long when using the feature (vs no sleep/hiber) ,
> plus, i dont risk it crashing when there is grid/power issue, or (rare chance) bricking a drive when  power goes out.
> 
> ...



I live in CA where power is not cheap, so let the desktop idle for hours is not a good option.
I would love to use Sleep, which is my preferred method, but the stupid board has a bug, if I use sleep and it wakes up from sleep, CPU fan speed goes to about 200RPM and it never increases while under load.  It resets when I restart the machine.
Machine is connected to very good UPS, that will be keep it powered for 15 min after power outage and if needed will put it to hibernation.

Shutting down is not an option as I do have lot of my apps (software development) open, would like to continue where I left.

Yeah for general use I don't see much of an issue with regular SSDs.  This is out of curiosity to find if it is possible to enjoy NVMe.

Eventually I will build Ryzen based machine, right now not much time.  If I do the bios hack, there is a chance of breaking the board, that will be a forced Ryzen build lol.


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## Rob94hawk (Jan 2, 2020)

Fry178 said:


> depends on what you do.
> large amounts of data/lots of small files, or doing everything on one drive, maybe.



Absolutely. But absolutely silly if this is my wife's shopping/email rig. She can wait an extra 0.25 sec for things to load. lol!


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## Fry178 (Jan 2, 2020)

@suraswami 
The one time where my "usually" doesnt apply xD
Yeah, for work stuff its different.

With apps/software development it might make a difference loading them from nvme, most pcie drives do at least double the sata speed, most 256gb drives will do 2-3 K/s and usually quicker for IOPs as well.
Plus, you could reuse the drive later (os or spare) once you switched boards.

@Rob94hawk
Lol.
But seriously, loading win definitely makes use of the speed,
450/500mb sata took about 20s, nvme drive down to 10s,
after that of course not much unless transferring large files.
Do like that most copying/transfers of files below 1gb wont even trigger
a OS windows showing progress (3 nvme drives)..


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## Rob94hawk (Jan 4, 2020)

Fry178 said:


> @suraswami
> The one time where my "usually" doesnt apply xD
> Yeah, for work stuff its different.
> 
> ...



I don't think it's even possible to boot from the extra PCI E x 16 slot on my GA-X38T-DQ6 motherboard so I think that just ends the argument right there.


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## suraswami (Apr 30, 2020)

After debating for a long time finally decided to take a chance and it seems to be working so far.

Woo Hoo!! updated the hacked bios and imaged the SATA SSD to the new PCIe NVMe drive and all set now.






This replaced the Inland 240GB DRamless SATA SSD, that was having R/W numbers all over the map.  Sometimes I used to get high 200 MB/s for R/W and sometimes more than 400.

Now its much better with the NVMe drive.  I am not getting full speed of the drive since the mobo's PCIe slot is v2.0.  But still I got about 4 to 6 times better speed according to CrystalDisk

Not bad for $60 total cost (drive + PCIe adapter).

Hacked bios is more finicky with Over Clocking, for now I left the CPU at 4 Ghz on all cores.

Old Dinosaur walking briskly now


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## Deekerr16 (May 16, 2020)

Would this modded BIOS for the rev. 4.0 work on the R5 rev. 1.0? That might be a stupid question but I can dream.


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## suraswami (May 17, 2020)

Deekerr16 said:


> Would this modded BIOS for the rev. 4.0 work on the R5 rev. 1.0? That might be a stupid question but I can dream.


This one is specific for this version.  You can ask that dude on the other forum to see if he can help.


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## xvi (May 17, 2020)

Wow, thanks for the update!

Is there a pretty noticeable difference between SATA and the M.2 drive in day-to-day operations?


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## suraswami (May 17, 2020)

xvi said:


> Wow, thanks for the update!
> 
> Is there a pretty noticeable difference between SATA and the M.2 drive in day-to-day operations?



It feels zippy but hacked bios is no good for even slight over clocking.


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