Hi All, I have just put together a rig for a friend of mine and installed Windows 10 successfully and it is running fine. However when I checked in the BIOS the M2 drive I am using as the boot device is using the SATA connection as opposed to the PCIE lanes. I was hoping someone could help point me in the right direction to set up the M2 using the PCIE lanes to maximise performance? I'm not bothered about wiping the drive to reinstall Windows again. Below is the setup: Intel Skylake i5 6600k Asus Z170 Pro Gaming Samsung SM951 NVMe PCIe 3.0x4 (boot) Samsung 850 EVO (games) Toshiba 3TB (storage) Corsair 16GB 2666 DDR4 RAM NZXT Kraken X61 MSI 970 Twin Frozr V NZXT H440 case Corsair RM850W PSU I haven't built a rig in a while and this is my first with UEFI style BIOS so I'm still getting my head around the new interface. I'm not sure which options I need to change and as this build is for a good friend of mine I don't want to be messing around with settings I do not fully understand. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated
Looking at the manual, it appears that on the "onboard devices configuration" page, there is a setting for "M.2 and SATA Express SATA mode configuration". This needs to be set to SATA Express, so that the SATA express ports use SATA mode and the M.2 uses PCIe.
Hi Mike, Thanks for the reply. I've been doing some further research and it looks like your suggestion is part of the solution. I also need to disable a CSM setting and change an option or two in that area. Well no time like the present...Wish me luck!!
I did this, and I had to select '(secure) UEFI boot' from the boot options - I was booting from a Win 8.1 USB pen. Else, the volume was unavailable. Hope that helps?
After reading some guides I believe I now have found the correct procedure. So enter the BIOS: Advanced Menu Onboard Devices Configuration-->M.2 and SATA Express SATA mode configuration-->SATA Express Boot Menu CSM Disabled Secure Boot-->Other OS Insert Windows USB (UEFI Version) and reboot Install Windows After reboot, remove USB and re-enter BIOS CSM Enabled Secure Boot-->UEFI Save and exit and Windows should carry on installing. Unfortunately this has not worked for me...the BIOS can see the drive but Windows cannot. I can only assume it is now a driver issue? I cannot find a driver anywhere. But connecting the drive as AHCI it runs perfect. The only solution I have found so far is to install Windows onto a different drive and then clone it over. So for now I'll keep the setup as AHCI - it's still stupidly fast. Windows installed in a couple minutes. After POST, boot time is literally seconds and I've never in my life installed MS Office so quickly! Hopefully soon I'll be able to switch over to the PCIe lanes and use that extra bit of performance it is capable of. Thanks guys for your help - as always very much appreciated.
