# M.2 Nvme 960 Pro not fully compatible with z97 bios better upgrade ?



## Animalpak (Mar 18, 2017)

Hello guys .

I have issues with my Samsung 960 pro Nvme SSD, i managed to make it work on my z97 Maximus VII Impact but with a lot of struggle and problems.  I do not get BSOD but the system occasionally goes in spurts, in most importantly do not fully exploit the speed of the SSD.

Windows 10 continues to notice that I have a unknown hardware component without drivers, but I downloaded and installed all the drivers from the samsung website.

3’500 MB/s not even once !

Do i need to upgrade to get the full potential of this M.2 ssd ?? I suspect z97 is not compatible with NVme.


----------



## newtekie1 (Mar 18, 2017)

Have you installed all the drivers for your motherboard from ASUS' website?


----------



## Animalpak (Mar 18, 2017)

newtekie1 said:


> Have you installed all the drivers for your motherboard from ASUS' website?


Yes all are up to date, also i have the latest bios 3003.


----------



## EarthDog (Mar 18, 2017)

What are you using to get your results..screenshot please? Is the m.2 slot pcie3.0 x4 32gbps? 

Also, this review shows it maxing out at 3gbps and in atto...do your results match that?

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10754/samsung-960-pro-ssd-review


----------



## eidairaman1 (Mar 18, 2017)

As far as I know if there is no settings in a bios for NVME compatibility, then there is no guarantee it will work correctly.

My AMD Asus TUF 990FX Sabertooth R2.0 received BIOS 2901 which enabled nvme support last year through the PCIE slots since it does not have a M.2 socket.

Only other solution is to get a native pcie SSD


----------



## newtekie1 (Mar 18, 2017)

The board has NVMe support, that isn't a problem.  There shouldn't be a problem with a M.2 drive in that board.


----------



## eidairaman1 (Mar 18, 2017)

newtekie1 said:


> The board has NVMe support, that isn't a problem.  There shouldn't be a problem with a M.2 drive in that board.


He may need to very well Talk with Asus, Intel and Samsung since they are all in question then.


----------



## Animalpak (Mar 18, 2017)

EarthDog said:


> What are you using to get your results..screenshot please? Is the m.2 slot pcie3.0 x4 32gbps?
> 
> Also, this review shows it maxing out at 3gbps and in atto...do your results match that?
> 
> http://www.anandtech.com/show/10754/samsung-960-pro-ssd-review




I used Userbenchmark here a screenshot :









The results do not match at all. I expect way more performance even if is still faster than a normal SSD.




eidairaman1 said:


> As far as I know if there is no settings in a bios for NVME compatibility, then there is no guarantee it will work correctly.
> 
> My AMD Asus TUF 990FX Sabertooth R2.0 received BIOS 2901 which enabled nvme support last year through the PCIE slots since it does not have a M.2 socket.
> 
> Only other solution is to get a native pcie SSD



Yes there is the NVMe options in BIOS and is enabled but still i get bad results.




newtekie1 said:


> The board has NVMe support, that isn't a problem.  There shouldn't be a problem with a M.2 drive in that board.




I cant explain that. Im sure this board is not fully compatible with NVMe.


----------



## eidairaman1 (Mar 18, 2017)

Animalpak said:


> I used Userbenchmark here a screenshot :
> 
> 
> 
> ...



This would be a good time to contact all 3 manufacturers.


----------



## lZKoce (Mar 18, 2017)

Is the drive directly into the MB or are you using an add-on card ?


----------



## EarthDog (Mar 18, 2017)

Please don't use a jenky arse test like user bench....

Use atto and see if you are close to what they are getting...

You won't ever get 3500 out of it..read my link and look at their results please...

So far, I don't see a problem people.....what is in question here is the OPs lack of testing in something that can be compared... not to mention, it won't reach 3.5k as the bandwidth is saturated...again, look at my link amd the atto results. Then YOU run atto and see if it's close.


----------



## Animalpak (Mar 18, 2017)

lZKoce said:


> Is the drive directly into the MB or are you using an add-on card ?



No i use a type of PCI-E Combo from Asus.











EarthDog said:


> Please don't use a jenky arse test like user bench....
> 
> Use atto and see if you are close to what they are getting...
> 
> ...






OK i did ATTO benchmark and i get this :


----------



## eidairaman1 (Mar 18, 2017)

Animalpak said:


> No i use a type of PCI-E Combo from Asus.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Adapters create some form of latency unfortunately because of the translation chips used, same issues happen when using IDE drives on a SATA port with an IDE to SATA adapter. This is where a dedicated m.2 socket wins and where a Dedicated pcie ssd do as well.


----------



## EarthDog (Mar 18, 2017)

Animalpak said:


> No i use a type of PCI-E Combo from Asus.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Looks pretty close to the results I linked.... ehh???

I don't see any problems here yet....


----------



## newtekie1 (Mar 18, 2017)

EarthDog said:


> Please don't use a jenky arse test like user bench....
> 
> Use atto and see if you are close to what they are getting...
> 
> You won't ever get 3500 out of it..read my link and look at their results please...



This, especially when the SSD you are testing is also your boot drive.  Windows accessing the drive during the benchmark will slow the benchmark down.



Animalpak said:


> OK i did ATTO benchmark and i get this :



That is reads of almost 3,000MB/s.  You aren't going to get much better than that.  The issue isn't the SSD or the motherboard, the SSD is working normally.



eidairaman1 said:


> Adapters create some form of latency unfortunately because of the translation chips used, same issues happen when using IDE drives on a SATA port with an IDE to SATA adapter. This is where a dedicated m.2 socket wins and where a Dedicated pcie ssd do as well.



That is only an issue with an adapter if the adapter is translating between different protocols.  When translating between SATA and PATA, there is a chip that has to process and convert the instructions and data transfer.

With the PCI-E/M.2 adapters NVMe adapters, that isn't the problem.  They are only adapting the slot form factors, not translating protocols. The underlying protocol is still PCI-E NVMe.  Adapters don't add latency of slow down speed in this case.  A dedicated M.2 slot is just a different form factor PCI-E slot.



Animalpak said:


> Yes all are up to date, also i have the latest bios 3003.



Did you install the MEI?


----------



## Animalpak (Mar 19, 2017)

newtekie1 said:


> This, especially when the SSD you are testing is also your boot drive.  Windows accessing the drive during the benchmark will slow the benchmark down.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yes MEi is installed... Well i have to say thank you all guys to reply my thread, my concerns are based on my SSD was not working to its full potential ... But i was wrong ... So there is no need for me to face an unnecessary and costly upgrades ...

Plus z97 and 4790K are a killer combo for any game today, and im so happy with my system... I know even if you have a 3770k you are still 100% ok !!


----------



## davidm71 (May 21, 2017)

Might want to try Anvil's Storage Utilities benchmark. Others have reported it as being a better benchmark tool for SSD.


----------

