Making an old machine boot from a pcie nvme card

bonehead123 · Oct 21, 2022

Hello there,

I have recently come across an old HP/AMD A10-powered business machine, which is horribly slow and I wanna speed it up....but I don't see any options in the bios to get it to boot from a pcie card with an nvme drive on it..

Can this be done perhaps with a custom bios ? If so please let me know if you have any ideas how/where I could obtain the tools needed to accomplish this...

And FYI, I have already replaced the spinning ruster buster with a 512GB SATA3 SSD, which helped a little, as did bumping the ram from 4 to 16GB, and installing a new but very slimmed down/optimized W10 pro install....and only the bare minimum apps so far...

The only other thing I thought of might be to install a small d-GPU like a 2-4GB GT1030 or 1050, in order to offload some of the graphics rendering from the cpu & integrated gpu, which has only 1GB of vram...

TIA for any suggestions

stinger608 · Oct 21, 2022

Hmm, now I wonder if you actually installed the PCIe card and SSD, if it would appear in the BIOS as a bootable possibility?

If you have both the card and NVMe, you might poke it in there and see if it shows as an option in the BIOS.

Just a thought? :toast:

TheoneandonlyMrK · Oct 21, 2022

bonehead123 said:
Hello there,

I have recently come across an old HP/AMD A10-powered business machine, which is horribly slow and I wanna speed it up....but I don't see any options in the bios to get it to boot from a pcie card with an nvme drive on it..

Can this be done perhaps with a custom bios ? If so please let me know if you have any ideas how/where I could obtain the tools needed to accomplish this...

And FYI, I have already replaced the spinning ruster buster with a 512GB SATA3 SSD, which helped a little, as did bumping the ram from 4 to 16GB, and installing a new but very slimmed down/optimized W10 pro install....and only the bare minimum apps so far...

The only other thing I thought of might be to install a small d-GPU like a 2-4GB GT1030 or 1050, in order to offload some of the graphics rendering from the cpu & integrated gpu, which has only 1GB of vram...

TIA for any suggestions

I can't say it's definitely going to work but I did use a pciex drive on an FX system that didn't directly support it and it was a pain to get working and that had a controller built in so I could load driver's during windows install and get it working, I doubt a nvme+adapter would be bootable directly but it might well show up during install of Windows and if it does should then boot, it's a pciex drive after all and I have tried a basic adapter.
I wouldn't bet on it still so I wouldn't advise spending much to try it.

68Olds · Oct 21, 2022

Can you run CrystalDiskMark then post a screenshot of the benchmark. The SSD in AHCI mode made a pretty big difference with my A10 APU. I am running a separate video card though. It's an old HD7750 video card.
Edit: my motherboard is only SATAII but the SSD is SATAIII.

Here's my CDM result to give you something to compare against.

docnorth · Oct 21, 2022

I don’t think you can expect any improvement compared to sata iii ssd. Even if you manage to connect a NVMe drive via adapter the maximum transfer speed will probably still be sata iii. The idea to use a dGPU seems far better, the CPU has a fixed power limit on prebuilt systems, that is shared with the integrated graphics if they are used.

stinger608 · Oct 21, 2022

docnorth said:
I don’t think you can expect any improvement compared to sata iii ssd. Even if you manage to connect a NVMe drive via adapter the maximum transfer speed will probably still be sata iii.

Yep, I think you are correct on this mate!

68Olds · Oct 21, 2022

docnorth said:
I don’t think you can expect any improvement compared to sata iii ssd. Even if you manage to connect a NVMe drive via adapter the maximum transfer speed will probably still be sata iii. The idea to use a dGPU seems far better, the CPU has a fixed power limit on prebuilt systems, that is shared with the integrated graphics if they are used.

stinger608 said:
Yep, I think you are correct on this mate!

I agree and SATAIII will be better than SATAII if the add-in card can boot the system. I'm curious to see if the OP is running the SSD in IDE mode or AHCI mode. If it's in IDE mode, it will barely be faster than a spinner.

Wirko · Oct 21, 2022

docnorth said:
I don’t think you can expect any improvement compared to sata iii ssd. Even if you manage to connect a NVMe drive via adapter the maximum transfer speed will probably still be sata iii.

I agree. I have a SATA III SSD (Samsung 850 EVO in AHCI mode) in my main PC (i5-6600K) and no, the SSD is not dragging the PC down to the point that I'd even consider a NVMe drive. Your A10 processor is about half as fast as my i5, and the SSD is roughly equally fast, so again, the SSD is not even close to being a bottleneck.

If the CPU is on the AM4 socket then you have some options to upgrade it; if it's FM2/FM2+, you already have what's the fastest, or very close to that.

docnorth said:
The idea to use a dGPU seems far better, the CPU has a fixed power limit on prebuilt systems, that is shared with the integrated graphics if they are used.

True, and apart from that, the CPU has a fixed memory bandwidth that's shared with the iGPU if it's enabled.

thewan · Oct 21, 2022

you could always try a bootloader/manager like clover. basically you put clover onto a sata drive or a usb drive and boot from it, clover recognizes the pcie nvme ssd and you can select it to boot. For installing windows, if you boot directly from usb and windows cannot see the pcie nvme ssd, try booting into clover first then use clover to boot the windows installer. it should see the pcie nvme ssd for installation.
(I have never tried this as I didnt need to, so you would need to ask someone else for additional help if necessary)

GitHub - CloverHackyColor/CloverBootloader: Bootloader for macOS, Windows and Linux in UEFI and in legacy mode

Bootloader for macOS, Windows and Linux in UEFI and in legacy mode - CloverHackyColor/CloverBootloader

github.com

I did have an Bulldozer AMD FX system with a second hand Crosshair V Formula Z in it (No way i could afford this brand new back when I was a student, but my previous mobo died after getting killed by a leaking AIO and it was cheap). There was already a premoded bios for that mobo to boot using pcie nvme ssd from the wonderful ppl over at win-raid which I could just flash and it works just like that. Maybe you can hit up that forum and make a request for your bios or ask for help on how to mod your own bios. If you ask some one to do it you might need to pay them though.

Win-Raid Forum

Guides, Drivers, Firmware, Research & Discussions regarding Computer Storage, BIOS/Firmware Modding, System Performance, Optimization etc

winraid.level1techs.com

BIOS/UEFI Modding

Guides, Files and Support

winraid.level1techs.com

bonehead123 · Oct 22, 2022

Thanks to everyone who has responded

1- Yes I have already installed the card with the nvme drive on it and it does not show up in device manager, disk management, bios, or anywhere else for that matter
2- Yes I have the SATA mode set to AHCI, not IDE...
3- It's on the FM2+ socket, I know because it originally had an A6 in there, and I researched my upgrade possibilities & bought the A10 to replace it, dropped it in & booted right up nottaproblemo, but that's as far as this mobo can go CPU-wise

So next I think I will look into the Clover option, and then perhaps the dGPU...

I will post back with the results !

Count von Schwalbe · Oct 22, 2022

RAID 10 boot SSD?

OneMoar · Oct 22, 2022

an nvme drive is not going to help that pc, a SATA drive is all the drive that machine needs (it doesn't have the pci-e bandwidth anyway if you plan on putting anything else in the system)

the issue is the AMD APU AMD APUs even the A10s where in short garbage, the best thing you can do for them is fast ram
but the entire machine is likely worth about 50 bucks

putting a dGPU in there is silly unless there is some specific game you are trying to play, but any modern gpu even a GTX 1060 would be wasted on that machine
best just to bin it and surf facebook/goodwill for something newer

uuee · Oct 22, 2022

For everyday tasks I cannot tell the difference between a sata2 ssd as the bootdrive (Intel 710) and an NVME pcie3.0 (Patriot Viper VPN) in my i7-10700 rig.

Sell the NVME drive and buy a used 1155 board + an i5 3xxx from that money (or sg like a dell 7010 mt -Could be bought for 50-60 EUR where I live). It will be night and day compared to an A10 powered machine.

Off topic: An SSD in IDE mode wouldn't be much slower than in AHCI, not even compareable to a HDD.

bonehead123 · Oct 22, 2022

Well, 1st off, I did not BUY this machine, it was taken out of storage at work to be thrown into the trash bin, so it's not like it's a budget buster for me to spend $100 or so to see if I can make it moderately usable, even just as a surfer box or whatever, and I already had the m.2 drive as one of my spares with some 3rd copy of my regular back-ups

Also, I build (professionally), rebuild, restore etc pc's, new, old or in between....don't matta to me, so this is moar of the same, not anything that is so critical that I just can't do without it, seeins how I have several other modern W10 & 11 machines in da house

Yes I know the A10 wasn't exactly da bomb, but it still works, and I got it for free also, so no biggie there either !

As for the GPU, as I said before, I thought perhaps that offloading some of the graphics work from the cpu & iGPU with its pitiful 1GB of vram might help a little, but again it's not critical, so I may skip that too.

CDM results are too scary to post, as it only got into the mid-100's for the seq #'s & 1/2 that on the random readings....so any improvement here would be a welcomed change for sure, even if it only gets similar what to the above screenshot shows....

OneMoar · Oct 22, 2022

the low disk mark scores are because the cpu is slow
so nvme storage is not going to fix that

bonehead123 · Oct 23, 2022

OneMoar said:
the low disk mark scores are because the cpu is slow
so nvme storage is not going to fix that

Yea I know, I was just trying whatever I could to help things along as far as I could.... I would hate to see how low the scores would have been with the original A6

Vario · Oct 23, 2022

If you want to boot from an NVMe on an older system, the Samsung 950 Pro will do it. It has a setting that allows you to boot in Legacy Mode. There aren't very many other SSD that will. You pretty much need a Samsung 950 Pro or it won't work. I have a 950 Pro and I am able to boot to Windows with my 2010 X58 Xeon system.

68Olds · Oct 23, 2022

My system is FM2, not FM2+. PM me if you wanna compare settings. It’s great for a htpc at these less than optimal specs.

LabRat 891 · Oct 23, 2022

Watching thread. Will revisit later.

(I've successfully booted off nVME using a 3rd party bootloader, on H81 w/o UEFI support) I'm looking to do this again on some seriously retro kit in the near future. Will both reference here, and share when I do.

System Name	The Little One
Processor	i5-11320H @4.4GHZ
Motherboard	AZW SEI
Cooling	Fan w/heat pipes + side & rear vents
Memory	64GB Crucial DDR4-3200 (2x 32GB)
Video Card(s)	Iris XE
Storage	WD Black SN850X 4TB m.2, Seagate 2TB SSD + SN850 4TB x2 in an external enclosure
Display(s)	2x Samsung 43" & 2x 32"
Case	Practically identical to a mac mini, just purrtier in slate blue, & with 3x usb ports on the front !
Audio Device(s)	Yamaha ATS-1060 Bluetooth Soundbar & Subwoofer
Power Supply	65w brick
Mouse	Logitech MX Master 2
Keyboard	Logitech G613 mechanical wireless
Software	Windows 10 pro 64 bit, with all the unnecessary background shitzu turned OFF !
Benchmark Scores	PDQ

System Name	Dean Machine/2020 Ryzenfall
Processor	Intel 4790K/AMD Ryzen 5800X
Motherboard	MSI 1150 Gaming mATX/Asus ROG STRIX B550-F Gaming Wifi
Cooling	Cooler Master Hyper 212 LED/SilverStone AH240 AIO
Memory	16 gigs Crucial Ballistix Tactical Tracer/32 gigs G.Skill TridentZ NEO DDR4
Video Card(s)	Gigabyte 1660 Super/EVGA GTX 1080 FTW Hybrid Gaming
Storage	Crucial SSD 256 and 2TB spinner/Dual Samsung 980 Pro M2 NVME 4.0
Display(s)	Overlord 27" 2560 x 1440
Case	Corsair Air 540
Audio Device(s)	On board
Power Supply	Seasonic modular 850 watt Platinum/EVGA T2-850 Titanium
Software	Windows 10 Pro/Windows 10 Pro

System Name	RyzenGtEvo/ Asus strix scar II
Processor	Amd R5 5900X/ Intel 8750H
Motherboard	Crosshair hero8 impact/Asus
Cooling	360EK extreme rad+ 360$EK slim all push, cpu ek suprim Gpu full cover all EK
Memory	Corsair Vengeance Rgb pro 3600cas14 16Gb in four sticks./16Gb/16GB
Video Card(s)	Powercolour RX7900XT Reference/Rtx 2060
Storage	Silicon power 2TB nvme/8Tb external/1Tb samsung Evo nvme 2Tb sata ssd/1Tb nvme
Display(s)	Samsung UAE28"850R 4k freesync.dell shiter
Case	Lianli 011 dynamic/strix scar2
Audio Device(s)	Xfi creative 7.1 on board ,Yamaha dts av setup, corsair void pro headset
Power Supply	corsair 1200Hxi/Asus stock
Mouse	Roccat Kova/ Logitech G wireless
Keyboard	Roccat Aimo 120
VR HMD	Oculus rift
Software	Win 10 Pro
Benchmark Scores	8726 vega 3dmark timespy/ laptop Timespy 6506

System Name	Gamer
Processor	Ryzen 7 5800X3D
Motherboard	Gigabyte X570 Aorus Elite WIFI
Cooling	Apogee XL, MCR360, MCP655, Micro-rez
Memory	2x16GB G.Skill DDR4-3600 CL16
Video Card(s)	Red Dragon RX 6800 XT
Storage	WD SN850 1TB & SN750 1TB
Display(s)	LG 32GK650F-B 32" 1440p 144Hz
Case	Rocketfish (Lian Li) e-ATX
Audio Device(s)	Harman Kardon HK695 2.1
Power Supply	Seasonic Focus GM-750
Mouse	HP Gaming wired
Keyboard	Logitech G110 wired
VR HMD	HP WMR 1440^2
Software	Win10 Pro 64bit

System Name	Office / HP Prodesk 490 G3 MT (ex-office)
Processor	Intel 13700 (90° limit) / Intel i7-6700
Motherboard	Asus TUF Gaming H770 Pro / HP 805F H170
Cooling	Noctua NH-U14S / Stock
Memory	G. Skill Trident XMP 2x16gb DDR5 6400MHz cl32 / Samsung 2x8gb 2133MHz DDR4
Video Card(s)	Asus RTX 3060 Ti Dual OC GDDR6X / Zotac GTX 1650 GDDR6 OC
Storage	Samsung 2tb 980 PRO MZ / Samsung SSD 1TB 860 EVO + WD blue HDD 1TB (WD10EZEX)
Display(s)	Eizo FlexScan EV2455 - 1920x1200 / Panasonic TX-32LS490E 32'' LED 1920x1080
Case	Nanoxia Deep Silence 8 Pro / HP microtower
Audio Device(s)	On board
Power Supply	Seasonic Prime PX750 / OEM 300W bronze
Mouse	MS cheap wired / Logitech cheap wired m90
Keyboard	MS cheap wired / HP cheap wired
Software	W11 / W7 Pro ->10 Pro

Making an old machine boot from a pcie nvme card

bonehead123

stinger608

Dedicated TPU Cruncher & Folder

TheoneandonlyMrK

68Olds

docnorth

stinger608

Dedicated TPU Cruncher & Folder

68Olds

Wirko

thewan

GitHub - CloverHackyColor/CloverBootloader: Bootloader for macOS, Windows and Linux in UEFI and in legacy mode

Win-Raid Forum

BIOS/UEFI Modding

bonehead123

Count von Schwalbe

OneMoar

There is Always Moar

uuee

bonehead123

OneMoar

There is Always Moar

bonehead123

Vario

68Olds

LabRat 891

Processor	i5-6600K
Motherboard	Asus Z170A
Cooling	some cheap Cooler Master Hyper 103 or similar
Memory	16GB DDR4-2400
Video Card(s)	IGP
Storage	Samsung 850 EVO 250GB
Display(s)	2x Oldell 24" 1920x1200
Case	Bitfenix Nova white windowless non-mesh
Audio Device(s)	E-mu 1212m PCI
Power Supply	Seasonic G-360
Mouse	Logitech Marble trackball, never had a mouse
Keyboard	Key Tronic KT2000, no Win key because 1994
Software	Oldwin

System Name	Uzuki Toune
Processor	AMD RYZEN 7 7700X (ASUS PBO 90C Mode)
Motherboard	Asus ROG Strix X670E-E Gaming WIFI
Cooling	Thermalright Frostspirit 140 White V3 ARGB
Memory	32GB DDR6000 CL36 Kingston (EXPO)(16GBx2)
Video Card(s)	Zotac GTX 1050TI
Storage	2TB Kingston KC3000 + 1TB Crucial P2 + 480GB Samsung Evo 850 + 480GB Kingston A400
Display(s)	Dell U2723QE + Philips 221V8 (Portrait)
Case	NZXT H510
Audio Device(s)	Auzen X-FI Forte + Onboard Realtek 4080 -> Creative Gigaworks T40II
Power Supply	EVGA G+ 650W
Mouse	Logitech MX Master 3 (Work) & G103 (Play)
Keyboard	iRocks K71M
Software	Windows 11 Professional

System Name	Work Computer \| Unfinished Computer
Processor	Core i7-6700 \| Ryzen 5 5600X
Motherboard	Dell Q170 \| Gigabyte Aorus Elite Wi-Fi
Cooling	A fan? \| Truly Custom Loop
Memory	4x4GB Crucial 2133 C17 \| 4x8GB Corsair Vengeance RGB 3600 C26
Video Card(s)	Dell Radeon R7 450 \| RTX 2080 Ti FE
Storage	Crucial BX500 2TB \| TBD
Display(s)	3x LG QHD 32" GSM5B96 \| TBD
Case	Dell \| Heavily Modified Phanteks P400
Power Supply	Dell TFX Non-standard \| EVGA BQ 650W
Mouse	Monster No-Name $7 Gaming Mouse\| TBD

System Name	RPC MK2.5
Processor	Ryzen 5800x
Motherboard	Gigabyte Aorus Pro V2
Cooling	Thermalright Phantom Spirit SE
Memory	CL16 BL2K16G36C16U4RL 3600 1:1 micron e-die
Video Card(s)	GIGABYTE RTX 3070 Ti GAMING OC
Storage	Nextorage NE1N 2TB ADATA SX8200PRO NVME 512GB, Intel 545s 500GBSSD, ADATA SU800 SSD, 3TB Spinner
Display(s)	LG Ultra Gear 32 1440p 165hz Dell 1440p 75hz
Case	Phanteks P300 /w 300A front panel conversion
Audio Device(s)	onboard
Power Supply	SeaSonic Focus+ Platinum 750W
Mouse	Kone burst Pro
Keyboard	SteelSeries Apex 7
Software	Windows 11 +startisallback

Processor	Intel i7 10700F
Motherboard	Asus Prime Z490-P
Cooling	Be Quiet Dark Rock TF
Memory	2x16GB Crucial Ballistix 3200MHz RGB (dual rank e-die)
Video Card(s)	EVGA 3060 XC Gaming
Storage	Patriot VPN100 256GB, Samsung 980 PRO 1TB, Intel 710 300GB, Micron M500 960GB, Seagate Skyhawk 4TB
Display(s)	ASUS VG27AQZ
Case	Be Quiet Silent Base 800
Audio Device(s)	X-fi HD
Power Supply	Corsair RM550x (2018)
Mouse	Cooler Master MM720
Keyboard	Kingston HyperX Alloy FPS

System Name	Computer of Theseus
Processor	Intel i9-12900KS: 50x Pcore multi @ 1.18Vcore (target 1.275V -100mv offset)
Motherboard	EVGA Z690 Classified
Cooling	Noctua NH-D15S, 2xThermalRight TY-143, 4xNoctua NF-A12x25,3xNF-A12x15, 2xAquacomputer Splitty9Active
Memory	G-Skill Trident Z5 (32GB) DDR5-6000 C36 F5-6000J3636F16GX2-TZ5RK
Video Card(s)	ASUS PROART RTX 4070 Ti-Super OC 16GB, 2670MHz, 0.93V
Storage	1x Samsung 970 Pro 512GB NVMe (OS), 2x Samsung 970 Evo Plus 2TB (data), ASUS BW-16D1HT (BluRay)
Display(s)	Dell S3220DGF 32" 2560x1440 165Hz Primary, Dell P2017H 19.5" 1600x900 Secondary, Ergotron LX arms.
Case	Lian Li O11 Air Mini
Audio Device(s)	Audiotechnica ATR2100X-USB, El Gato Wave XLR Mic Preamp, ATH M50X Headphones, Behringer 302USB Mixer
Power Supply	Super Flower Leadex Platinum SE 1000W 80+ Platinum White, MODDIY 12VHPWR Cable
Mouse	Zowie EC3-C
Keyboard	Vortex Multix 87 Winter TKL (Gateron G Pro Yellow)
Software	Win 10 LTSC 21H2

System Name	Sleepy Painter
Processor	AMD Ryzen 5 3600
Motherboard	Asus TuF Gaming X570-PLUS/WIFI
Cooling	FSP Windale 6 - Passive
Memory	2x16GB F4-3600C16-16GVKC @ 16-19-21-36-58-1T
Video Card(s)	MSI RX580 8GB
Storage	2x Samsung PM963 960GB nVME RAID0, Crucial BX500 1TB SATA, WD Blue 3D 2TB SATA
Display(s)	Microboard 32" Curved 1080P 144hz VA w/ Freesync
Case	NZXT Gamma Classic Black
Audio Device(s)	Asus Xonar D1
Power Supply	Rosewill 1KW on 240V@60hz
Mouse	Logitech MX518 Legend
Keyboard	Red Dragon K552
Software	Windows 10 Enterprise 2019 LTSC 1809 17763.1757