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960 PRO M.2 on ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R3.0?

Glowball

Glowball

Member
I already have the mobo working with SATA HDDs and I bought the 960 PRO SSD before reading that the mobo is only compatible with the 950 PRO. Are they so different? I've got it installed and I'm not sure what to do to the setup to make it recognize the SSD. It doesn't see it at all as far as I can tell. What should I do to troubleshoot this? Thanks for your help.
 
Where did you read that your mobo is only compatible with the 950 Pro model?

The 950 Pro and 960 Pro / Evo, are all NVMe M.2 PCI-E SSDs. So I don't know why the compatibility wouldn't be identical.
 
I had a 960 Pro working in one of those motherboards for a while. I never tried booting from it though.

Does the BIOS not recognize it? What aboout if you boot into Windows and look in "disk management"?
 
I read it on the Asus website for the motherboard. I don't see it in the disks list. Thanks for the quick replies.
 
D'accord. There are reports, such as above, of a 960 operating on the board so the details of your install may matter. You might say which OS is used, post a picture of the drive showing the make and model numbers and also a picture of the disk manager's view of the drives with the M2 attached.
First though, call ASUS Component Product Support: 1-812-282-2787 to ask what more is required to support the 960.
 
I've been on the phone with ASUS and we changed settings here and there, and pulled the battery to reset everything. The BIOS never saw the SSD. They came to the conclusion that it does not work with that board. I'm trying to install Windows 10 on it, but I suppose it doesn't matter much if the BIOS never sees it. Disk management just sees my HDDs. Not sure what else to do...
 
The ASUS tech had me try that, but without success.

Should I look into an expansion card? I could try that next. No idea what to get or if you can boot from them. I'd really like to use the SSD and I also really like this motherboard, but things are not looking good for the motherboard m.2 slot.
 
I'm wondering if the SATA HDDs, or perhaps a PCI-E expansion card is using the "lanes" from the chipset, and disabling the M.2 slot connections.

Have you tried unplugging your expansion cards (except for video), and SATA HDDs, and just having the M.2 PCI-E SSD installed, and having Win10 on a USB installer, and seeing if Win10 will let you try installing on the M.2?

Also, in the mobo specs, does it specifically call out PCI-E support for the M.2, and not just SATA? (Edit: Says that it supports PCI-E 2.0 x4 on the M.2.)
 
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I've been doing this without the SATA drives plugged in, and the CMOS reset wiped them out, too. The only expansion card I have is video. I haven't tried Win10 on USB, but when I try it from the DVD it doesn't recognize the drive. The BIOS shows it is set for PCI-E, but I tried it with SATA too just to experiment. It didn't recognize it then, either.

Do you think a USB Win10 install would be different? I can definitely try that if you're advising it.
 
Glowball said:
...Should I look into an expansion card? I could try that next. No idea what to get or if you can boot from them...
Click to expand...
Might be worth trying. I think you should be able to boot from one as long as the motherboard supports booting from NVMe. Windows should see it anyway. If you have another motherboard, testing it there would hopefully let you know if it's the drive or the motherboard at fault.
 
Anyone have a recommendation of what I should buy? I know the motherboard supports booting from a 950 EVO NVMe so I should be good there.
 
They are pretty simple devices, so I expect any one will be fine. Personally, I have one made by Akasa.

And if any manufacturers are listening, testing drives like this would be much easier if someone made an NVMe-to-USB adapter.
 
Thanks, I'll look at that one. I'll admit that this is the most difficult time I've had adding storage, but it's fairly new so I'm being patient. There isn't much support for the 960 PRO yet, from what I'm finding.
 
Is the problem an outdated M2 port or something else and if so, will the 960 drive work attached to a PCIe adapter when the board does not not recognize it when it is M2 connected ?
Someone here might well say it could. Given a substantial investment in the card, the adapter Mr Devil recommended may be the best choice .
 
Hey all, I picked up the StarTech adapter at http://a.co/hDqmiDY and it worked with the SSD right from the start. Installed Windows10 and all is well. It seems quite a bit faster than a fresh install on regular SATA drives but I haven't done any speed tests. I guess it was an issue with the onboard M.2 connection on the motherboard. Thanks for your help, everyone!
 
Glowball said:
Hey all, I picked up the StarTech adapter at http://a.co/hDqmiDY and it worked with the SSD right from the start. Installed Windows10 and all is well. It seems quite a bit faster than a fresh install on regular SATA drives but I haven't done any speed tests. I guess it was an issue with the onboard M.2 connection on the motherboard. Thanks for your help, everyone!
Click to expand...
Hello, I'm having the same problem as you were having. I'm wondering how your bios settings look like. I can't get passed the "the current setting in your bios does not support the boot device", can you help me?
 
charlenze said:
Hello, I'm having the same problem as you were having. I'm wondering how your bios settings look like. I can't get passed the "the current setting in your bios does not support the boot device", can you help me?
Click to expand...
I was never able to get the motherboard connection to work. Are you using an adapter?
 
Glowball said:
I was never able to get the motherboard connection to work. Are you using an adapter?
Click to expand...
Yes, I bought an Asus Hyper Kit, I can access the disk from another windows installation and I can install windows on the disk but after the first restart it refuses to boot from it :/
 
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