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ROG G751-JY BIOS 211 NVMe Upgrade Guide Step by Step

chris_tronic
Level 9
Hello volks,
this guide was developed on the ground based work of Fernando in the WIN Raid Forums.
He developed the NVMe Support and the update procedures. Im very thankful and proud of Fernando's work.
Without it, we would never have NVMe support on our older generations Notebooks..

I recently modded my BIOS and now it supports the NVMe Protokoll.
I want to share some experience I made during modding my BIOS,
so that anyone who owns the G751 with an M.2 slot should get a NVMe drive to work.

I dont take any responsibility if you make modifications and somehow brick your BIOS.
I strongly recomment to decide yourself if you want do the BIOS Mod or not.


Its not quite difficult to mod the ASUS G751-JY BIOS. I will give you an easy Guide you can follow step by step.
My System is a G751-JY with 24GB of RAM Georce GTX 980m 4GB and Windows 7 prof. 64

OK, lets start.

What you need:
- actual BIOS Vers. 211 / if not yet installed, please download the Update from ASUS support and install it yousing Easy-Flash in the BIOS.
- AMI Firmware Updater (afuwin64) from AMI for Aptio 4
- MMTool for Aptio 4
- UEFITOOL_0.2.2.1
- EFI NVMe BIOS Module

You can find the actual downloads on the win-raid forums.
https://www.win-raid.com/t871f50-Guide-How-to-get-full-NVMe-support-for-all-Systems-with-an-AMI-UEFI...
This guide was also done with the ground based work of fernando.
Please ask him for further support

1. First of all, downoad all the needed files into a new Folder and Name it "BiosMod"
2. Now we are going to make a copy of the present BIOS using afuwinx64. Start the AFUWINGUI
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3. Hit the save Buttom and store your actual copy of your BIOS in a seperate Folder and name it afuwin.rom
4. Copy the afuwin.rom (your EFI BIOS without Capsule) to the MMTOOLs Folder
5. Start MMTooL and Load the afuwin.rom Image
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6. Click "Create Report" and close MMTooL.
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7. Now open UEfiTool_0.2.2.1 and load the afuwin.rom image by clicking "File" and "Open Immage file" and select
aufwin.rom
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8. Now that you loaded your BIOS in Uefitools hit the "File" Buttom --> "Search" select "Text" and enter DXE in the searchfield
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9. Hit "OK" and doubleclick at "interface section at offset Ch"
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10 . Scroll down to the LANDriver DXE driver and click the right Mouse buttom and hit "Insert After..."
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11. Select the "NvmExpressDxe_3.ffs
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12. Now you have insert the DXE NVME driver Module in the free memory space below the LanDriver DXE Module. Now you Click "File" and "Save Image file..."
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13. Save the new romfile and name it 211nvme.rom
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14. Click "Yes" for Open reconstructed file? and parse again if the NVME Module is correctly installed between the LanDXE_Module and the free Space
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15. Copy the new 211nvme.rom file to the MMTools Directory.
16. Start MMTool and load the new 211nvme.rom and click create Report. Close MMTool
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17. Now you can open both the old afuwin.rpt Textfile and the new 211nvme.rpt Textfile and compare them.
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18. Compare the afuwin.rpt and the 211nvme.rpt and you should get the same Text as I have

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19. Now that we have checked everything, we are going to flash the new BIOS
20. Open afuwingui hit "Open" and select the "211nvme.rom file" Carefully look at the Lenght of the File it should have exactly 6.144KB as your afuwin.rom also.
Maybe the length could differ from BIOS to BIOS but i think it should be that value.

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21. Now we are ready to Flash the new BIOS. Attach your powersupply and close all unneeded Programs
22. Hit the "Flash" buttom and enjoy your computer gets upgraded with NVMe support.
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Now that we programed the new BIOS, you can attach a new NVMe SSD at the M.2 socket.
Notice: there is no Drive Listing in the PCIe SSD field or it even disappeared in the BIOS, but dont be afraid.
If the NVMe SSD is bootable, you should get a BOOT Option like I have: Windows Boot Manager.

Here is an overview of my HWInfo:

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I hope you find this Guide useful. IF so, you can leave some comments.
Thanks also to the WinRaid Forum for Supporting me with the DXE Drivers.

If you want, feel free to contact me:
I can create check and send the modified 211nvme.rom Bios File file to you, if you send me your saved Bios with afuwin (valid only for G751having a PCIe x4 M.2) Than you only need to Flash the new Bios with AfuWin64 without to be afraid bricking your G751.
Just send my an E-Mail to: chris-tronic@gmx.de

Regards

Christian Karbe ( Informatic / Computer Enginneer)
[And again, if your unsure if you wanna do the Flash, better do not. I will not be responsible for any damage.

Have Fun

Christian
107,144 Views
110 REPLIES 110

I was nervous, but went through the process without a problem with the BIOS update using version 213. Until I hit a snag imaging my previous Windows 10 install to my new NVME drive (WD Blue SN550 1TB).

The image was successful to the new drive using a USB to PCIe adapter and Macrium. However after installing, Windows would not boot and went straight to recovery. I had to reinstall (Refresh) my Windows 10. Luckily I had a backup, and was able to recover most of my data. Most likely Windows was not loading a NVMe driver to recognize the new drive. A fresh install fixed that.

Just a bit of info to pass on. Before doing this I contacted ASUS support (just curious what they would say) to see if they would provide an updated BIOS with NVMe support for these laptops. I got a polite brush off. Though the Tech did say that these laptops (G751) by design do not support any SSD larger than 256GB, which I thought was very strange for them to say.

1 now have a WD 1TB SN550 Blue NVMe M.2 SSD installed as my boot device, and a Crucial MX500 1TB as a storage device. Thanks for all the help and this guide.

Supa

CrystalIIzation wrote:
Hi all,

I am currently utilizing a 128 GB SSD which has been filled to the brim with windows updates thereby preventing me from upgrading to windows 10.
Consequently, I made the decision to buy a 1TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus, unaware that it was incompatible with the ASUS ROG G751JY.

I therefore stumbled upon this thread and therefore believed I found my saving grace.
I'd cloned my prior SSD with the windows 8.1OS and files over to the new SSD, alas I am currently still facing difficulties booting from the new SSD despite following the provided steps to MOD the BIOS in accepting NVMe SSDs.

The error which appears would be that windows would continuously attempt to diagnose the computer at boot up and end up being unable to find a solution before restarting in a continuous loop.

I was wondering if there were any BIOS settings which i should be particularly mindful of during the OS boot up?
Either that or would it be the case that I am to conduct a fresh windows installation on a empty drive? (I had attempted this with a windows 8.1 thumb drive but the installer states that the hardware is incompatible...)
Or would this be the case that windows 8.1 is entirely incompatible with this mod as well?

This is the first time that I am attempting to clone a OS drive and as such would like to seek any possible assistance in this matter.

Note: Utilized BIOS Ver 213 alongside the NvmExpressDxe_4 module in my installation of the mod.

Hello CrystalIIzation,

Maybe the problem was with the clone process.
I recommend MiniTool Partition Wizard or EaseUS Partition Master to do so.

Also you must be sure that the inclusion of the NvmExpressDxe_4 module into the BIOS was successful (step 18).
The module position is very important. Must be the last one just after the LANDriver.

Did you try to boot removing all of your SATA storage devices leaving only the NVMe drive plugged?

Another possible solution is to install (before cloning the drive) Samsung's NVMe drivers for Windows 8: https://www.win-raid.com/t29f25-Recommended-AHCI-RAID-and-NVMe-Drivers.html

season_of_ages
Level 7
So anyone who originally flashed a modded 211 Bios, is it worth the trouble of flashing 213? I assume I'll need to replace my naked 1tb Samsung 850 in the Sata 3 position with a drive with Windows already installed, so it would be kind of a hassle for me. Since there are no explicit details as to how 213 is optimized over 211, can anyone provide feedback for any perceived improvements with the latest bios?

PS: anyone using Thunderbolt, out of curiosity? I just purchased a second nvme (2tb 970 Evo) to use as an instrument sound drive but I'm disappointed with the read/write speeds I am seeing. I went through a lot of trouble to install the latest Thunderbolt 2 drivers and am now considering swapping the 2tb nvme SSD for my boot drive instead of the 1tb. I figure I'll throw this bit of info out there.

BigJohnny
Level 13
Been there and done that but couldnt get any better performance than with the AHCI drive one letter different (SM951MZVPV for NVME and SM951MZHPV for the AHCI version). With it native in my G752VY (have a G751JY also) the sequential read on a 960 pro is 3400MB/S. Raid up two of them and it doesnt do much good as you are restricted by the DMI bus, got me to 3700MB/S but the latency of the raid makes boot times longer and kills the IOPS on the 4K speeds. Ill post up a run of that next time I boot it up.

I put in a WD SN850 with BIOS 213 and NvmExpressDxe_5 and most things are running pretty well! Thank you!!!

1625/1478 seq. read/write, which seems like the max for this port or chipset. Games install and run fast, and I've registered at least one game using as much as 425 MB/sec of bandwidth on the SSD while loading, so that's better than the 75 MB/s that the stock 5400 RPM HDD does.

I am however seeing massive problems with Git / SourceTree, where the SSD is up to 12.5x SLOWER than the stock 5400 RPM HDD :confused: The stock SSD is worse than the SN850, so it's not the SN850 itself. I made a write-up of a bunch of tests I did, with disastrous results, and posted them to SourceTree's bugtracker (which nobody looks at), if anyone is interested.

Does anyone know if there's a fix for this? Do I need a new chipset driver? LiveUpdate doesn't have anything new.

Dalarast
Level 7
Spent the past two weeks trying to get a new Samsung 980 M.2 installed. With the forums down during that time I could only see this post on the search browser and not the full thread. Very excited for this and it worked like a charm. Updated to the ever newer firmware from Asus, used NvmExpressDxe_5.ffs instead of 3, and utilized the link for the Asus drive for AFUWIN64.

Major props to the OP! You are an MVP and just enhanced this "classic" laptop.

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gerowd
Level 7

Incase anybody is trying to update their BIOS first to bring it up to date to the latest 213 unmodified version  and you either have a bad or dead battery - if you run into the blue warning screen which prevents you updating the BIOS without atleast 20% battery, try typing:

  • yksir - or
  • risky

to get passed this blue screen. Took me hours to find this solution.

 

I've only managed to update my BIOS so far to the the standard/unmodified 213, and will purchase a M.2 drive later in the week. 

Good luck with the mod 🙂

risky did not work for me, but yksir did.

tolc
Level 7
Hi, I know it's been a long time since this post was opened, but I bought a g751jy and I would like to put the nvme on. Reading the posts, I couldn't identify how to do it, considering that the page where the step-by-step files are available no longer opens?