M.2 issues

[f1schu]

Hi there. I have a rampage v extreme which is running a 5820k, 2x r9 290 gpus and a soundblaster z soundcard.
I just purchased a new Samsung 960 Evo M.2 ssd, got home and I plugged in the new drive into the M.2 slot on the rampage and booted up the system. At first everything seemed okay as the drive was showing in the bios and the windows install configuration. I started to install windows to the M.2 drive and it all went okay until the system rebooted and gave me an error about something to do with not being able to find locale.
After a few more attempts at trying to install windows with no success the system then started to hang at the bios splash screen. I tried both bios 1 and 2 and both would get stuck at the splash screen with the boot device led on the rampage staying on.
As soon as I remove the M.2 drive it boots fine on both bios 1 & 2.

Now when I purchased the Samsung 960 evo from Maplin the box was open and the guy told me that they had a spate of shoplifting and because of that removed the drive from it's box but assured me that it was brand new. I'm now thinking that may not be the case and it's a faulty drive, or the fact that I'm using a 5820k that has only 28 lanes but I'm not so sure as my first gpu is running at x16 and the second one at x8 equaling 24 lanes leaving 4 for the M.2. Like I mentioned previously I also have a soundblaster z plugged into the pcie x1 slot but was told that the pcie x1 Lane is supplied by the x99 chipset and not the cpu so it should not affect anything.
Just to be sure I unplugged the soundcard and it made no difference. As soon as the M.2 drive is installed the system gets stuck at the splash screen.

Do you think it's a faulty drive? Or something else?

[f1schu]

Brighttail wrote:
The 960's and 961's have had some issues with the RVE and RVE10. You absolutely need to load windows using the UEFI BIOS, otherwise there will be problems. If you can't find it when you go to load windows you have to change your BIOS to have boot search for UEFI only and the boot from PCI-E to UEFI first (to be safe or if you are using a PCI-e card).

To be 100% sure nothing else is interfering, I disconnect all my other SATA SSD/HDDs during the initial installation. This way none of them accidentally get marked or confused as a boot drive.

If all this fails, you can always go into CSM and disable it and load the Samsung drivers through the Windows Installation program, using the 'have disk" option. There are several write ups about this way, but honestly you really shouldn't need it.

There is a little bug at least on the RVE10 where if you change some of the settings in BIOS after Windows has loaded up, the 960/961 will suddenly not be recognized by BIOS. Not sure why this is but I have figured out how to get around it. It only happens if you make changes tho.

1. Make your changes to BIOS you want. Save the profile in BIOS.
2. Now load optimal Defaults, save and exit BIOS
3. Enter BIOS again you should be able to check that your M.2 is now being recognized. Simply load your old profile, save and exit. You should be able to boot into windows now.

So long as you make no other adjustments to BIOS this should fix it.

Thanks for the info bro. I'm pretty sure the drive was faulty tbh. I installed everything correctly and the drive was present in the bios and boot options and even in the windows setup but gave errors when rebooting during the final steps of the install.
After 2 failed windows installations the drive then made the system hang at bios splash screen. I tried to clear cmos, removed battery, changed to bios 2 and even tried reseating the drive but it would still hang at the bios splash screen. Only way to get into bios was to remove the 960 from the M.2 slot.
Will be buying another so will report back if I run into the same issues.

Can anyone confirm these for me please.
1.Does the x99 chipset have its own 8 pcie lanes.
2.Does the pcie x1 slot I use for my soundcard use the cpu or chipset pcie lanes ( I was told the chipset )
3.Does using a m.2 drive effect the sata ports on the rampage v extreme.

Just trying to work out if I have enough lanes for my set up which will be.
2x gpu 1@x16 other @x8
1x pcie x1 soundcard.
1x Samsung 960 evo M.2
3x sata ssds
1x sata hdd

[Brighttail]

I don't know ALL the answers to your questions but I can let you know about the m.2 portion. I was running 2 x 980 in SLI at x16 each AND one M.2 in the M.2 slot, AND another in a PCI-e Slot, both ran at x4. Using the M.2 does effect the Sata Express slots. You have to look at the manual to see which ones they do but it is like 7-8 or something, not the first 5 or 6.

Considering you are using only one M.2 in the slot and have a sound card, there shouldn't be any reason you can't have x16, x16 on your GPUs. Unfortunately the new R5E10 doesn't allow this for some reason and drops one of the GPUs to x8.

All that being said, you only have 28 lanes on your CPU. So my guess is you'll be x16, x8 on the GPUs. I hope you find an answer as I'd be interested in knowing if you can get x4 off your m.2 AND run your sound card.

[f1schu]

Brighttail wrote:
I don't know ALL the answers to your questions but I can let you know about the m.2 portion. I was running 2 x 980 in SLI at x16 each AND one M.2 in the M.2 slot, AND another in a PCI-e Slot, both ran at x4. Using the M.2 does effect the Sata Express slots. You have to look at the manual to see which ones they do but it is like 7-8 or something, not the first 5 or 6.

Considering you are using only one M.2 in the slot and have a sound card, there shouldn't be any reason you can't have x16, x16 on your GPUs. Unfortunately the new R5E10 doesn't allow this for some reason and drops one of the GPUs to x8.

All that being said, you only have 28 lanes on your CPU. So my guess is you'll be x16, x8 on the GPUs. I hope you find an answer as I'd be interested in knowing if you can get x4 off your m.2 AND run your sound card.

Cheers bud!, yeah my gpus will only ever run at x16/x8 as like you rightly point out my 5820k only has 28 lanes available. If what I have been told is correct the x1 pcie slot uses the x99 chipset for its lanes then using the m.2 should be fine as I have 4 lanes left from the 5820k.
Don't know if I could live without my soundblaster z as the r5e's Onboard audio is just shocking lol

[Brighttail]

f1schu wrote:
Cheers bud!, yeah my gpus will only ever run at x16/x8 as like you rightly point out my 5820k only has 28 lanes available. If what I have been told is correct the x1 pcie slot uses the x99 chipset for its lanes then using the m.2 should be fine as I have 4 lanes left from the 5820k.
Don't know if I could live without my soundblaster z as the r5e's Onboard audio is just shocking lol

Having never had a sound card in the last 10 + years, is it that much better than the onboard audio on the R5E? My board the R5E10 even has it's own DAC, which I don't use, just my speakers. 🙂

[f1schu]

Brighttail wrote:
Having never had a sound card in the last 10 + years, is it that much better than the onboard audio on the R5E? My board the R5E10 even has it's own DAC, which I don't use, just my speakers. 🙂

For me mate the difference was night and day. I don't know if things have improved now on the R5E10 but on my R5E it's not even an option for me. Onboard audio had so much emi and buzzing that I just couldn't stand it and I wasn't the only person to complain about it.
In the end I went out and purchased a soundblaster z plugged it in and it was awesome in comparison. Much higher audio quality and zero interference or buzzing and as it comes with a built in 600 ohm headphone amp I finally got to hear the full potential of my Sennheiser G4ME One headphones and it was simply in another league.
Now the only thing I use the Onboard audio for is to output to the K.I.T.T voice box vu meter I have (My build was themed around Knight Rider) 🙂

[Brighttail]

f1schu wrote:
For me mate the difference was night and day. I don't know if things have improved now on the R5E10 but on my R5E it's not even an option for me. Onboard audio had so much emi and buzzing that I just couldn't stand it and I wasn't the only person to complain about it.
In the end I went out and purchased a soundblaster z plugged it in and it was awesome in comparison. Much higher audio quality and zero interference or buzzing and as it comes with a built in 600 ohm headphone amp I finally got to hear the full potential of my Sennheiser G4ME One headphones and it was simply in another league.
Now the only thing I use the Onboard audio for is to output to the K.I.T.T voice box vu meter I have (My build was themed around Knight Rider) 🙂

Heh that is pretty cool. I honestly have no buzzing or anything. I don't have the best speakers but they are decent with the klipsch promedia 2.1. I don't use headphones so probably won't see that big of a difference.

[Nicklas0912]

I have the same problem, 2x M.2 960 EVO now died on my board 🙂

It just hand on the post screen. it will only post if I take the M.2 SSD out.

[f1schu]

Nicklas0912 wrote:
I have the same problem, 2x M.2 960 EVO now died on my board 🙂

It just hand on the post screen. it will only post if I take the M.2 SSD out.

Yeah it's weird. It worked fine for me at first then all of a sudden that was it. It just decided it didn't want to post anymore until the drive was removed from the slot. Just hoping it doesn't happen again when I get my new one. Only issue now is that no one has any stock of the 256gb 960 evo's here in the UK and im impatient and hate waiting for things grrrr lol.

[Brighttail]

Nicklas0912 wrote:
I have the same problem, 2x M.2 960 EVO now died on my board 🙂

It just hand on the post screen. it will only post if I take the M.2 SSD out.

Do what I posted earlier. Set your BIOS options the way you want them, save the profile, load optimized default, save & exit BIOS, Re-enter BIOS and your m.2's should be recognized (as long as you have the UEFI properly set), reload your saved BIOS options, save and exit. You should be fine.

This motherboard for some reason will just forget that the 960/961s exist when you start making changes to BIOS. So do what I stated above and it should catch them again.

[Nicklas0912]

Brighttail wrote:
Do what I posted earlier. Set your BIOS options the way you want them, save the profile, load optimized default, save & exit BIOS, Re-enter BIOS and your m.2's should be recognized (as long as you have the UEFI properly set), reload your saved BIOS options, save and exit. You should be fine.

This motherboard for some reason will just forget that the 960/961s exist when you start making changes to BIOS. So do what I stated above and it should catch them again.

That does not help, it wont post no matter what, and if you read, I RMA them and even them said they are dead 🙂