Intel Motherboards : Z170M-Extreme4 Having Issue with M.2 Drives

Author: parsec
Subject: Z170M-Extreme4 Having Issue with M.2 Drives
Posted: 23 May 2017 at 11:03pm

fhtfht wrote: Hi, I am a system integrator. We use a lot of Asrock Z170M-Extreme4 for our product buildout. During a new project, we discover some issue with the board and the M.2 drive. Here is the configuration.  1. A Intel S3520 960GB SSD SATA drive is connected to the SATA 4 port on MB. it has windows OS installed.  2. A DVD-RW SATA is connected to the SATA 6 port on the MB.  3. Installed Windows 7 Pro 64bit OS. everything works fine.  4. Installed a samsung 960 evo 1TB M.2 drive to the Ultra M.2 slot.  5. Boot system. The system turned on but there is no post bios and hangs in a black screen. Remove the M.2 drive, the system boots fine. We have 10+ system using the same motherboard. Some works so don't. Even for the ones that works, sometime we disconnect the power, move the system to another room, reconnect power and boot. It went to the same black screen again. If we let it sit for a few minutes, turn it back on, it worked fine.  Any ideas? We need help right away as we have 50+ more system to build based on the same board.

When you install the 960 EVOs, are you clearing the UEFI/BIOS before you start the PC again?

Do you know which UEFI/BIOS versions your board's currently have? Are you using the out of the box version, which may vary from board to board depending upon its production?

The 960 EVO requires an NVMe driver in order to operate. Windows 7 does not have a native/built in NVMe driver, and you did not say if you've added one to your Windows 7 installation media.

For the boards that start fine with the 960 EVO, can you see them listed in the Storage Configuration screen in the UEFI, in the M.2(PCIE) entry? Another place to check for detection of any NVMe SSD is in the Tools, System Browser feature in the UEFI.

We have seen reports of odd behavior of some 960 EVOs by users of various compatible ASRock boards. I have not experienced that myself with two 960 EVOs, just something to keep in mind.