Z170X Gaming 7 bios setting for single Samsung 950 Pro

[Ballad]

Hey Guy! My first post here so go easy on me.  Just got my Z170x Gaming 7 up and running (jumped ship from ROG).
Was hoping to get the best bios settings/setup for getting a single Samsung 950 pro to boot fast as possible. I'm using F6 bios and have the drive in M2D top position.  Did a bunch of checking online without much luck.
Appreciate it!

[polypenko]

I have the same mb and m.2 ssd, but I placed it in the 2nd m.2 slot, this allows you to use
more sata connections.  (see the manual)

Assume you have already installed the Samsung NVME 1.1 drivers?

I selected Windows Bootmanager as the first boot option.

In addition to the Samsung Pro 950 - 256gb I have 3 WD storage HD's and a dvd player.

Windows 10 pro boots in approx. 25 to 27 seconds, not much faster than my former
Samsung Evo 850.

But once you start installing programmes the 950pro goes like a bat out of hell.

GB initial boot takes almost 9 seconds, before Windows is actuallly loaded.

Samsung Magician records a write speed 925 mb/s and read approx 2200 mb/s which is
as per the manufacturer specs.

I'm using Beta F2R

[Ballad]

I have the same mb and m.2 ssd, but I placed it in the 2nd m.2 slot, this allows you to use
more sata connections.  (see the manual)

Assume you have already installed the Samsung NVME 1.1 drivers?

I selected Windows Bootmanager as the first boot option.

In addition to the Samsung Pro 950 - 256gb I have 3 WD storage HD's and a dvd player.

Windows 10 pro boots in approx. 25 to 27 seconds, not much faster than my former
Samsung Evo 850.

But once you start installing programmes the 950pro goes like a bat out of hell.

GB initial boot takes almost 9 seconds, before Windows is actuallly loaded.

Samsung Magician records a write speed 925 mb/s and read approx 2200 mb/s which is
as per the manufacturer specs.

I'm using Beta F2R

Hey thanks a lot polypenko! Appreciate the tips!

[Leppermessiah]

Installing in the first m.2 slot will disable some of the sata connections?

I referred to the manual but didn't fully comprehend the diagram.

[shadowsports]

Installing in the first m.2 slot will disable some of the sata connections?

I referred to the manual but didn't fully comprehend the diagram.

Leppermessiah,
The board has a limited number of resources.  A manufacturer decides what features will be supported and how they will be implemented.  Example single PCIe slot runs at x16, add a second card and they run at x8.  The upper m.2 slot requires resources that renders 2 of the standard SATA ports un-useable.  The lower slot doesn't.  Hope this makes sense. 

[Leppermessiah]

Makes sense.  Thank you!

[AZ_Gamer]

Installing in the first m.2 slot will disable some of the sata connections?

I referred to the manual but didn't fully comprehend the diagram.

Leppermessiah,
The board has a limited number of resources.  A manufacturer decides what features will be supported and how they will be implemented.  Example single PCIe slot runs at x16, add a second card and they run at x8.  The upper m.2 slot requires resources that renders 2 of the standard SATA ports un-useable.  The lower slot doesn't.  Hope this makes sense.

I hope you guys don't mind and I jump in on this ... So I would like to verify what you are saying in case I am not reading between the lines...If I install my 950 Pro M.2 into the second slot it will not affect the Sata Ports nor my SLI (x8 + x8)performance? Currently I have my 950 Pro in the first slot and boot time is rather not impressive.

[dmdilks]

I hope you guys don't mind and I jump in on this ... So I would like to verify what you are saying in case I am not reading between the lines...If I install my 950 Pro M.2 into the second slot it will not affect the Sata Ports nor my SLI (x8 + x8)performance? Currently I have my 950 Pro in the first slot and boot time is rather not impressive.

Yes that is true on the lower slot. Plus how do you have it setup in the bios. If you just drop in the OS without settings things it will have bad boot times. If you are just running windows 7. Put in the disk or plug in the USB drive. The go in change it to boot to the UEFI DVD or USB.

If you are running 8 or 10 do the same thing. Plus change it from the other OS to 8 & 10. How 7 will boot fast but not as has fast as 8 or 10. 7 isn't really setup to run the UEFI bios where 8 & 10 are.

[AZ_Gamer]

I hope you guys don't mind and I jump in on this ... So I would like to verify what you are saying in case I am not reading between the lines...If I install my 950 Pro M.2 into the second slot it will not affect the Sata Ports nor my SLI (x8 + x8)performance? Currently I have my 950 Pro in the first slot and boot time is rather not impressive.

Yes that is true on the lower slot. Plus how do you have it setup in the bios. If you just drop in the OS without settings things it will have bad boot times. If you are just running windows 7. Put in the disk or plug in the USB drive. The go in change it to boot to the UEFI DVD or USB.

If you are running 8 or 10 do the same thing. Plus change it from the other OS to 8 & 10. How 7 will boot fast but not as has fast as 8 or 10. 7 isn't really setup to run the UEFI bios where 8 & 10 are.

Thank you for that.

I do have my bios set for UEFI across the board and set to Windows 8. I did move my M.2 to the second slot. The system bios boot time response is a little better. However, before I could see the difference I had to remove the graphics cards though, and plug into the integrated graphics, and run DDU for Nvidia drivers, once I managed to get my display to work (caused some unknown driver issue) I was up and running.

On that note, if anyone cares, Nvidia recommends connecting to the lowest card (2nd, 3rd or 4th using multiple GPU's(heat and performance)).

 I have Ultra Fast boot with Partial initialize and XMP setup already.  Using the integrated audio with PAX Drivers and gaming kb and mouse in the top USB ports. Are their any bios settings changes (disable) you'd recommend to speed things up?

[Quitis]

Sounds like you're doing just fine. Just for review the following should be noted.

PCIe lanes used for the three PCIEX16 slots is a total of x20. PCIEX16_1 is x16 by itself, PCIEX16_1 + PCIEX16_2 run both in x8 mode for a total of x16 again. PCIEX16_3 is alone and will always run in x4 mode, UNLESS; PCIEX16_3 is disabled when M2H_32G is populated, its x4 PCIe lanes are used by the M.2 slot instead. Especially with your fancy Samsung 950 Pro which is PCIe x4. This is however the recommended configuration over M2D_32G which will negate 4 of your SATA3 ports when using a PCIe x4 SSD. So basically you are using all x20 lanes on the intel PCIe controller and should not run into any performance issues.

Samsung NVMe drivers are a must. I also recommend checking out what Samsung Magician tells you. I have no doubt it will report that it is running at 32gb/s which is the best you can hope for. Your bios settings sound just fine.

[Anarkii]

Would someone who has set up there Samsung 950 Pro mind sharing exactly how they set it up?

My drive is currently a MBR one so I have already made a bootable USB using Rufus and GPT partition scheme for UEFI.

My question is, what do I do now? I've Googled and watched many YouTube videos and nothing shows how it's done on the Gigabye z170X Gaming 7. (or any other Gigabyte mobo for that matter).

Ideally, if someone has it installed as a GBT drive, mind showing the bios settings needed so I can just copy the settings in my own bios and be up and running?

Thank you all

Please note I have the latest Samsung NVMe drivers and Samsung Magician already installed.

[Anarkii]

So I decided to do this myself and see how I go, and heres what I did for those of you who may of been in the same boat as me.

1. Windows 10 Pro was installed as a MBR partition on the Samsung Pro 950 256GB NVMe drive on the top slot closest to the CPU. Windows boot time was around 20 seconds.

2. Read that I needed to re-install Windows using Rufus, so made a USB boot disk with the latest Windows 10 ISO and installed it with 'GPT partition scheme for UEFI'.

3. Did some futher research, and found this website. http://www.disk-partition.com/windows-10/convert-mbr-gpt-windows-10-0528.html

4. Saw a application down the bottom of the page for AOMEI Partition Assistant. Downloaded this, ran it and followed the instructions on it to simply convert my drive to GPT without any data loss and needing to reinstall Windows 10. (and its super quick too!)

5. After completion, rebooted into Bios, and set the boot from 'Legacy' to 'EUFI' and that was that.

6. My system now has a pre-10 second boot time

[dmdilks]

One other thing you can do is put in the windows disk or like you did use a USB drive. Go into the bios with either one install and set the boot drive to DVD UEFI or USB UEFI. You will get the same thing. Plus set the Other OS to windows 8/10 too.

I have setup computers that way with just using a standard SSD that boot in about 15 sec. My laptop boots into about 10 sec plus using a MBR SSD setup.

[That_Pat!]

Hey Everyone!
I too have a SM950 Pro with this mobo, and I've been having some issues booting. I've followed along but I'm still missing something if someone could help see what i've missed.

I recently upgraded to Win10 from Win7 via a USB drive I bought at a local retailer. I installed the NVMe drivers, Windows can see the drive and its also recognized as boot option in the BIOS. I formatted it to NTFS and cloned my HDD to it. However, when I boot up, it says no bootable media found, insert / restart. I tried changing the OS type to Win8/10 UEFI but with the same result. Drive is the 512GB size and is mounted in the bottom most connector.

I have a hunch that its between my BIOS settings and possibly the format type that I'm stuck on.
Thanks!

[Anarkii]

Hey Everyone!
I too have a SM950 Pro with this mobo, and I've been having some issues booting. I've followed along but I'm still missing something if someone could help see what i've missed.

I recently upgraded to Win10 from Win7 via a USB drive I bought at a local retailer. I installed the NVMe drivers, Windows can see the drive and its also recognized as boot option in the BIOS. I formatted it to NTFS and cloned my HDD to it. However, when I boot up, it says no bootable media found, insert / restart. I tried changing the OS type to Win8/10 UEFI but with the same result. Drive is the 512GB size and is mounted in the bottom most connector.

I have a hunch that its between my BIOS settings and possibly the format type that I'm stuck on.
Thanks!

For me to have it boot, it required 'Windows boot manager' and to be set to UEFI. Once that was done it booted fine.