m.2 NVME disappears from boot devices in bios when trying to overclock

[Scruffy90]

I am trying to overclock my CPU on an Asus Sabertooth TUF x99, but whenever I go into AI tweaker and change the Ai Overclock Tuner to manual, my 960 evo disappears from my bios and I cannot boot into Windows. The only way i've been able to get everything up and running again is by setting Ai Overclock Tuner back to auto. Can anyone tell me whats going on and how I could overclock my system manually without having to lose my SSD in the process?

[zMeul]

if you are messing with BCLK that might explain things

[manikyath]

3 minutes ago, zMeul said:

if you are messing with BCLK that might explain things

if this = true then: this is why you dont touch BCLK

[TommyW2061]

10 minutes ago, Scruffy90 said:

I am trying to overclock my CPU on an Asus Sabertooth TUF x99, but whenever I go into AI tweaker and change the Ai Overclock Tuner to manual, my 960 evo disappears from my bios and I cannot boot into Windows. The only way i've been able to get everything up and running again is by setting Ai Overclock Tuner back to auto. Can anyone tell me whats going on and how I could overclock my system manually without having to lose my SSD in the process?

sorry ive just been staring at your profile pick for the last minutes.. might come up with an idea soon. dont know

[Scruffy90]

2 minutes ago, zMeul said:

if you are messing with BCLK that might explain things

 

 

2 minutes ago, manikyath said:

if this = true then: this is why you dont touch BCLK

To test this out, I loaded the default settings for the bios, and simply selected manual from the AI Tweaker > Ai Overclock Tuner without touching anything else (it keeps everything as auto until I manually configure it as far as I could tell) and I lose my ssd.  Putting everything back at Auto makes it available again 

[zMeul]

2 minutes ago, manikyath said:

if this = true then: this is why you dont touch BCLK

BCLK not being at 100Mhz is known to upset PCH's SATA controller and PCIe devices (being it SSDs)

[zMeul]

2 minutes ago, Scruffy90 said:

To test this out, I loaded the default settings for the bios, and simply selected manual from the AI Tweaker > Ai Overclock Tuner without touching anything else (it keeps everything as auto until I manually configure it as far as I could tell) and I lose my ssd.  Putting everything back at Auto makes it available again 

if you want to overclock, do it manually via BIOS and not via some shit utility

[Scruffy90]

2 minutes ago, zMeul said:

BCLK not being at 100Mhz is known to upset PCH's SATA controller and PCIe devices (being it SSDs)

It is at 100Mhz when switching to manual

1 minute ago, zMeul said:

if you want to overclock, do it manually via BIOS and not via some shit utility

This is through the BIOS. Ai Tweaker is a tab in the BIOS and Ai Overclock Tuner is the first setting in that tab

[Scruffy90]

So an update to anyone helping me. I tried doing a reinstall of windows and the 960 evo isn't detected at all. How would I be able to find out if its the ssd or the mobo thats shot without having additional equipment?

[Ensho]

Make sure that the bios is set to 'other OS' in the Windows 8 Features.  IIRC, unless you enable that option an NVMe drive won't be bootable into the OS.

[Scruffy90]

13 hours ago, Ensho said:

Make sure that the bios is set to 'other OS' in the Windows 8 Features.  IIRC, unless you enable that option an NVMe drive won't be bootable into the OS.

Did that too. I got on the phone with ASUS last night and now I am able to set my multiplier, but now if I try to manually key in voltage, it does what I described above as well.

[Biggerboot]

I would just flash to the latest bios and see what happens.  It might mean giving up your overclock for now but it's best to eliminate the possibility that the motherboard is straight up incompatible.  After that, try a manual OC.

 

For the record: calling Asus probably isn't going to get you far in this situation.  That's not a knock at their support, but with thier X99 boards they're probably going to tell you that the 960 just isn't supported on that board.

[Scruffy90]

Did that too. I updated my bios to 3402 and the problem still exist there. I'll be somewhat upset if its incompatible. May be my best bet to just get a sata ssd drive.

[Biggerboot]

5 minutes ago, Scruffy90 said:

Did that too. I updated my bios to 3402 and the problem still exist there. I'll be somewhat upset if its incompatible. May be my best bet to just get a sata ssd drive.

You honestly won't notice a large difference, but you could also try different pci-e slots (assuming youre not using an m.2 slot, otherwise you may need an adapter).

[Scruffy90]

1 minute ago, Biggerboot said:

You honestly won't notice a large difference, but you could also try different pci-e slots (assuming youre not using an m.2 slot).

The 960 evo I bought is using the m.2 slot. Do you think its simply incompatibility between the mobo and the drive or do you think something might not be working as intended?

[Biggerboot]

1 minute ago, Scruffy90 said:

The 960 evo I bought is using the m.2 slot. Do you think its simply incompatibility between the mobo and the drive or do you think something might not be working as intended?

Can't say for sure, I would try exhausting every possibility before coming to that conclusion.  The m.2 uses part of your SATA controller (it actually disables some SATA ports).  The PCI-e will use your pci-e lanes, which I think you have plenty of on x99.

 

Not being an officially supported drive doesn't always mean incompatibility but it basically means they didn't extensively test it with their board so there's a chance it has quirks like this.

[Scruffy90]

2 minutes ago, Biggerboot said:

Can't say for sure, I would try exhausting every possibility before coming to that conclusion.  The m.2 uses part of your SATA controller (it actually disables some SATA ports).  The PCI-e will use your pci-e lanes, which I think you have plenty of on x99.

 

Not being an officially supported drive doesn't always mean incompatibility but it basically means they didn't extensively test it with their board so there's a chance it has quirks like this.

Dont know if its using mSata. In the manual it states that it disables the pcie3 x4 lane that the m2 slot is next to. I will keep testing. Otherwise i'm just going to get as large as a sata SSD as I could get

[Biggerboot]

4 minutes ago, Scruffy90 said:

Dont know if its using mSata. In the manual it states that it disables the pcie3 x4 lane that the m2 slot is next to. I will keep testing. Otherwise i'm just going to get as large as a sata SSD as I could get

I think you're right actually, NVMe is different (form factor wise).  Still, an adapter would be nice to have so you could test on other boards too.

[Scruffy90]

1 minute ago, Biggerboot said:

I think you're right actually, NVMe is different.  Still, an adapter would be nice to have so you could test on other boards too.

My other board is z77 and I dont believe it supports nvme. I'm going to see if the store I bought it from could test it since i'm still within the return period.

[Biggerboot]

16 minutes ago, Scruffy90 said:

My other board is z77 and I dont believe it supports nvme. I'm going to see if the store I bought it from could test it since i'm still within the return period.

If they could that would be great.  Another thing I was thinking you could try is testing the drive without the GPU installed or installed in a 2.0 slot.  Again, not that it makes a lot of sense, but maybe it's an overlap in the pci-e controller that's messing things up.

[Scruffy90]

3 minutes ago, Biggerboot said:

If they could that would be great.  Another thing I was thinking you could try is testing the drive without the GPU installed or installed in a 2.0 slot.  Again, not that it makes a lot of sense, but maybe it's an overlap in the pci-e controller that's messing things up.

May be entirely possible. May try the second slot and see if that helps anything. Cant do it without a GPU though as this board doesnt have any video outputs.

[Biggerboot]

7 minutes ago, Scruffy90 said:

May be entirely possible. May try the second slot and see if that helps anything. Cant do it without a GPU though as this board doesnt have any video outputs.

Ah, indeed.  I'll admit I didn't research your board and the info I'm giving is kind of generic.  Hope that works out for you.

[Scruffy90]

7 minutes ago, Biggerboot said:

Ah, indeed.  I'll admit I didn't research your board and the info I'm giving is kind of generic.  Hope that works out for you.

It's all good. Any bit of help is well worth it.

[gfarmer2103]

Not sure if your still messing with this but disabling csm compatibility may solve your problem. 

[Scruffy90]

On 3/22/2018 at 11:19 AM, gfarmer2103 said:

Not sure if your still messing with this but disabling csm compatibility may solve your problem. 

Going to give this a shot at some point this week since I'm considering OCing my rig again. Thanks!