Dell XPS 15 9550 M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD - neither RAID nor AHCI

Since a few months I have been reading all the posts concerning how to install Win10 on a M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD. I can't understand why to bother with all the RAID or AHCI settings, or IRST drivers, while M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD shall be connected through the proper NVMe controller placed on the SSD drive, not through the SATA controller implemented into the motherboard's chipset (PCH Hub).
When performing a fresh Win 8.1 install, I made the following settings:
BIOS Settings:
General - Boot Sequence: Windows Boot Manager, UEFI
General - Advanced Boot Options: unchecked Enable Legacy Option ROMs
System Configuration - SATA Operation: Disabled (motherboard SATA controllers are hidden)
System Configration - Drives: only M.2 PCIe SSD-0 checked
Secure Boot - Secure Boot Enable: Disabled

Than, using Rufus, I prepared an USB stick (GPT, FAT32) with ISO Win 8.1. The only driver that I added to this USB stick was the Samsung NVMe v.1.4.7.17 driver.
During the installation, I pointed the Samsung NVME driver.
After the installation was over, I have enabled Secure Boot option in BIOS, than have added all the other drivers from Dell drivers website (not all of them, just those that I needed).
In Device Manager, my SSD drive is now listed as: "NVMe Samsung SSD 950 SCSI Disk Device", connected to the "Samsung NVMe Controller", which is directly connected to the "Intel(R) 100 Series/C230 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #9". No SATA controllers, no need to use any Intel Rapid Storage drivers, nor AHCI.
Really no idea why the original Dell XPS 9550 configuration goes a step back to the mainboard Intel SATA controller. What for was all the NVMe excitement if you are still depending on the SATA protocole???

 

I mostly agree (I used the same approach once...), but using the option
"System Configuration - SATA Operation: Disabled (motherboard SATA controllers are hidden"
leads to a lot of crashes when trying to wake up from sleep/hibernation. And if it wakes up once, the keyboard was not working in my case.

Did you try putting the PC to sleep?

Switching from Disabled to AHCI will not change the mode from NVMe to AHCI. You will still use NVMe, just the controller remains activated.

 

You were absolutely right, with a SATA motherboard controller disabled, I had the same problems when trying to restore from the sleep state (keyboard not working). So I have enabled the motherboard SATA controller with AHCI option, now it wakes up from sleep perfectly. Thanks!
However I still can't understand why there is such a negative influence of disabling motherboard SATA controller on the wake up from sleep state procedure - as you have noticed, no device in such a case is connected to the motherboard SATA controller, as SSD is still connected to the proper Samsung NVMe Controller. I had made the same setting, ie totally disabled onboard SATA controller, with my Dell 9343, and never had any problems with this option.
BTW, what is your last BIOS time in Task Manager? My results are around 10.5 seconds, which I find very slow, as with Dell 9343 I have 5 seconds. Any idea how to make a boot time shorter with Dell 9550?

 

I think it is another bug of the XPS 15 9550 (maybe BIOS related?).

There is a thread related to this. Many BIOS times are around 9 - 12 seconds. I think mine was ~11s.

 

Dear Bommel87 and RadioKWO.

Similarly to you I have changed some of the components of the 9550 I'm using. I replaced the
1TB HDD with 1TB Samsung 850 SSD
32GB M.2 with 512GB Samsung NVMe SSD
16GB DDR4 with 32GB DDR4

I have enabled the AHCI in the BIOS and loaded the OS onto the NVMe while using the SSD as a data drive.

When I had the Samsung drivers I was plagued with continous crashes from sleep and some blue screens. I reverted them back to MSFT drivers and the sleep behaves better, but I'm still plagued with blue screens.

There may be a mistake in how I loaded my OS and would apprecaite your step-by-step guidance.

 

Hi Bommel87,

I do have exactly the same experience regarding the keyboard not working anymore (appart from one thing and that is the FN/Wifi combination...weird)... I was in contact with the DELL support and they never heard about it so I'm glad I found someone who shares the same experience.

Regarding your statement about switching from NVMe to AHCI: How do you know that Windows will still be using the NVMe protocol?

Thanks for your support!

quicky