GL552VW-DH71 What drive for M.2 Slot?

[_Speedy]

It seems this has been beat to death in the forums for the 752 models, but I have not seen much for the 552. I bought a GL552VW-DH71 and a Samsung 950 pro 512 drive. Could not get them to work together. ASUS support says NVMe is not supported. I have seen other comments for this laptop that some people have used sata drives, but that seems like a step backwards. Can anyone confirm that the SAMSUNG SM951 M.2 512GB PCI-Express 3.0 works in this laptop?

IEDIT:
It appears the SM951 will not work either.
This may be a stupid question, but if a drive does not show up in the BIOS, it will never work, or will loading the proper driver cause the BIOS to see it?

[emejay]

I just picked this laptop up a couple of weeks ago and I've been doing research on m.2 ssds. I haven't yet picked an ssd drive yet, however, I think I'm close to pulling the trigger on a samsung sm951 as I'm relatively sure the ahci version of this drive will work. After spending the better part of a day on the phone with Asus' tech support I've confirmed 1) that the laptop supports pci-e but does not suppport sata, and 2) that it does not support nvme drives, only ahci ssd drives.

The samsung 950 drives are apparently all nvme, this is why they apparently don't work. The sm 951 drives have an ahci and a nvme model, so depending on the model you order it may or may not work.

Anyway, I've been struggling to find info in order to make an informed purchase, so I hope that this post is helpful for someone.

Edit: it appears that some people have gotten sata ssds, such as the samsung 850 evo or the crucial mx200 to work in this laptop so Asus tech support may not have been correct when they told me that it doesn't support sata m.2 ssd drives.

[kamilmirza]

greetings fellas

I have order GL552VW
I am planning to replace my primary HDD with SSD
can I replace the optical drive to HDD caddy? if so which HDD caddy should I consider? any recommendations?

[daselby]

I just recently bought the ACHI version of the sm951 and I can't get the laptop to recognize it either.

Here is a link to what I bought: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147425

I've been on with Asus support multiple times and the latest time they gave me the following instructions:

1. Go to BIOS >> Advance Settings
2. Change SATA Mode to IDE/AHCI (backward compatible) in PCI Storage Configuration
3. Set SATA Support to All Devices
4. Enable CSM and set

Boot Device control: UEFI and Legacy OPROM
Boot from Storage Devices: Legacy Only
Boot from Network Devices: Legacy Only
Boot from PCI-E/PCE Expansion Devices: UEFI Driver First

5. Disable Secure Boot (Set to Other OS)
6. Set Booting Order: 1st priority M.2 SSD 2280, 2nd DVD-ROM
7. Install Windows at selecting disk step, at drive option, delete any partition of M.2 SSD

If the M.2 SSD is not showing in the BIOS then you will need to try a different M.2 SSD.

**********************************************************************************************
Unfortunately, right after they gave this to me I got disconnected.

Also unfortunately, the above directions assume that when you hit F2 to enter the BIOS that it enters the ASUS UEFI BIOS Utility which my GL552VW-DH71 does not......and my bios does not have the options to follow the directions above. Does anyone know how to edit the options listed above? If I can edit these options I might be able to get my SM951......but so far .....no luck.

It would be greatly appreciated if someone could help as we all would like to put this issue to bed.

Thanks!

[Clintlgm]

It appears that there are 2 different motherboard for these GL notebooks with the one from Canada being SATA and the US one being NVMe. I believe I seen this in the GL 752 thread of the same issue on M.2 SSD You might want to check out that thread.

PM cl-albert he is ASUS and is working on this issue

[_Speedy]

This is what I've come up with so far:
Tried the Samsung 950 pro (NMVe). Didn't work. Was told by tech support that the m.2 slot only supported SATA drives.
Tried the Samsung SM951 (ACHI). Didn't work. Was told by tech support that the m.2 slot only supports NVMe drives, and was sent a link to the Samsung 950 pro on amazon. Also said needs to be a Gen4 drive.

He also told me the SSD that ships with this laptop is : 128 GB M.2 SSD (Samsung MZNLF128HCHP) which appears to be a SATA drive.

Yet he did insist a Samsung 950 pro would work as long as it was GEN4 (x4) He then gave me some BIOS settings to set that do not exist on my BIOS. He then recommended I wait a few weeks for a BIOS update. (Really coming? who knows)

Current plan: ordered a 2.5" SDD to use until the dust settles. Really kind of disappointed so far....

[emejay]

I think I'm going to order a SATA based m.2 drive to try, there are a number of reviews from people on Amazon and Newegg that have gotten SATA m.2 drives to work so it might be worth rolling the dice. The performance won't be in the same league as an NVME drive but it will be significantly cheaper so it kind of balances out - as long as it works, of course.

I'm generally a big fan of Asus products (my desktop mobo and video card are both Asus) but I'm really disappointed in the in the information that they've put out about this laptop. Overall this laptop is a great value, however I think it's inexcusable to not provide basic information about compatibility, particularly when the expandability is a selling feature of the laptop. It's no excuse to say that m.2 is a new technology as I used an Asus Z-97 mobo in the fall of 2014 to build my desktop system and I was able to find enough information to set up a Plextor m.2 PCI-E x2 drive for the system. It would be one thing if the problem was that specific m.2 drives don't work, however, Asus can't even definitively tell us what types of drive work - even worse we get conflicting answers from their tech support staff. This feels like a failure between the marketing and engineering departments and I'm confused as to why this hasn't been solved yet months after the laptop was released. I'm frustrated and this experience will likely affect my future hardware purchases.

[cl-Albert]

Hi emejay, replied to your PM, but am unable to email, so you may either want to send me PMs through the ROG forums, or post your questions.
Anyway, hope it's okay to share some of your questions below (if not, let me know and I can edit) and my answers with others.

emejay wrote:
Hi,

I recently purchased an ASUS GL552VW-DH71 and I want to put an m.2 ssd drive in to the empty slot - I've been on the phone with ASUS tech support a few times and I've been reading the forums but there seems to be a lot of conflicting information on what m.2 ssd drives are compatible or not...

Some of the information that I'm hoping to clear up:

1. are there different motherboards for GL552VW-DH71 (depending on country) or are they all the same for the same model number? If they are different, what type of M.2 compatibility is in place for the Canadian model?

Normally different countries don't sell the same full model names, but the U.S. and Canada are both part of the 'North America' region and are selling the exact same GL552VW-DH71 model in both countries in this case.
We can use different motherboards for the GL552VW models that we internally identify as 'SATA' or 'PCIE' and I'm showing that the GL552VW-DH71 model is using 'SATA' motherboards for the M.2 slot.

Customers with other GL552VW models will need to figure out which kind of motherboard they have first and the kind of M.2 SSDs it supports.

Edit 7/25/17: For those with the GL552VW-BB71-CB sold in Canada, it also supports only SATA3 M.2 SSDs as mentioned at the post below.
https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?94884-Anyone-else-have-this-GL552VW-model-BB71-CB-M-2-supp...

[genkvg]

Hi everybody!
After a few weeks of correspondence with the ASUS Technical Support
I received the following insider information about SSDs tested on GL552VW:
SSD P3X4 256GB M2 2280 NVME //SAMSUNG/MZVPV256HDGL-00000
SSD P3X4 512GB M2 2280 NVME //SAMSUNG/MZVPV512HDGL-00000
SSD SATA3 128GB M.2 2280 //SAMSUNG/MZNLF128HCHP-00004
SSD SATA3 128GM.2 2280/20200L00 //HYNIX/HFS128G39MNC-2300A
SSD SATA3 256GB M.2 2280 //HYNIX/HFS256G39MND-2200A
SSD SATA3 256GB M.2 2280 //SANDISK/SD7SN6S-256G
SSD S3 256GB M.2 2280/20300L00 //HYNIX/HFS256G39MND-2300A

These SSDs were tested on BIOS ver. 209.

[cl-Albert]

genkvg wrote:
Hi everybody!
After a few weeks of correspondence with the ASUS Technical Support
I received the following insider information about SSDs tested on GL552VW:
SSD P3X4 256GB M2 2280 NVME //SAMSUNG/MZVPV256HDGL-00000
SSD P3X4 512GB M2 2280 NVME //SAMSUNG/MZVPV512HDGL-00000
SSD SATA3 128GB M.2 2280 //SAMSUNG/MZNLF128HCHP-00004
SSD SATA3 128GM.2 2280/20200L00 //HYNIX/HFS128G39MNC-2300A
SSD SATA3 256GB M.2 2280 //HYNIX/HFS256G39MND-2200A
SSD SATA3 256GB M.2 2280 //SANDISK/SD7SN6S-256G
SSD S3 256GB M.2 2280/20300L00 //HYNIX/HFS256G39MND-2300A

These SSDs were tested on BIOS ver. 209.

Thanks for the information, but that list should be the combined SSDs for for both types ('SATA' and 'PCIE') of GL552VW motherboard and not just by 1 motherboard type or system.
If your ASUS contacts didn't already know this, you may want to ask them to confirm there are at least 2 different types of motherboards used (1 type of mb for SATA3 M.2 SSDs and 1 type of mb for PCIe M.2 SSDs) for the GL552VW model.

If you already have a GL552VW unit and don't have a better way to identify the type of motherboard, your local ASUS support should be able to check this from the serial number to tell you what kind of M.2 SSDs are supported.