NVMe SSD only at PCIe 3.0 x1 instead of 3.0 x4, causing slow speeds

[TomvanWijnen]

Yesterday I got a new SSD, the Corsair Force MP510 960 GB. After some bios troubles (don't disable CSM lol, it'll cause bootloops and stuff), I got it working properly and installed a fresh copy of Windows 10. I immediately ran CrystalDiskMark as I was curious to see the new speeds (had a quite full 5 year old 120 GB SSD before this ;)), but was suprised at them being only approximately 880 MB/s. I spent hours trying out different settings in the bios and other stuff, but nothing improved it.

 

Eventually I also downloaded CrystalDiskInfo, which reports to me that the SSD is only running at PCIe 3.0 x1 instead of x4, probably explaining the low speeds. Now the next issue: how do I fix this? I'm pretty sure that I've already checked all settings that seemed to matter in the bios, but maybe I missed something? Is there something else I should try?

 

The hardware I'm using should support this:

CPU: Intel core i7 6700k at 4.2GHz (waiting for a new application of thermal paste to overclock)

Mobo: ASUS Z170 Maximus VIII Gene with bios 3801 (newest)

RAM: 1x16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000 MHz (I'm pretty sure XMP is turned off)

SSD: Corsair Force MP510 960 GB (other drives are still disconnected)

GPU: GTX 680 (not overclocked. No other PCIe devices present)

PSU: be quiet! Pure Power L8 630W (leaving the last item without brackets looked weird)

 

 

(dunno why it did 770 now, generally it was more around 880)

[Jurrunio]

reinstall it, that usually happens when it's not installed properly

[TomvanWijnen]

3 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

reinstall it, that usually happens when it's not installed properly

ugh that sucks, it's below my graphics card which is difficult to take out and put back in because it's incredibly close to my CPU cooler... but okay, I guess I'll try that.

 

I also tried booting into my Windows 7 installation on my old SSD, but it doesn't even recognise the new SSD, yay for that.

[NunoLava1998]

About disabling CSM: You installed your OS in BIOS mode, not in UEFI mode.

UEFI with CSM tries to look for BOOTX64.EFI (which it didn't find); then for the regular BIOS bootloader (which it did find).

UEFI without CSM tries to look only for BOOTX64.EFI, and since it didn't find that (as you installed in BIOS mode), it just bootlooped.

[TomvanWijnen]

1 hour ago, Jurrunio said:

reinstall it, that usually happens when it's not installed properly

Ah. Okay then. I reinstalled it (took me ages to get my graphics card out, and ages again to get it to post and then boot into Windows), and that actually did the trick!

 

 

Thanks a lot for your help!

 

50 minutes ago, NunoLava1998 said:

About disabling CSM: You installed your OS in BIOS mode, not in UEFI mode.

UEFI with CSM tries to look for BOOTX64.EFI (which it didn't find); then for the regular BIOS bootloader (which it did find).

UEFI without CSM tries to look only for BOOTX64.EFI, and since it didn't find that (as you installed in BIOS mode), it just bootlooped.

Ah, I see. Is this a problem? Is there something I should/could change? It also always takes a couple of settings before it starts booting (the fans spin louder during these couple of seconds), is that related or something else?

[NunoLava1998]

28 minutes ago, TomvanWijnen said:

Ah, I see. Is this a problem? Is there something I should/could change? It also always takes a couple of settings before it starts booting (the fans spin louder during these couple of seconds), is that related or something else?

Not really a problem since barely any systems nowadays don't support BIOS or CSM.

About the fans spinning louder, no idea

[TomvanWijnen]

3 minutes ago, NunoLava1998 said:

Not really a problem since barely any systems nowadays don't support BIOS or CSM.

About the fans spinning louder, no idea

Okay, great, thanks!