P770ZM + Prema BIOS = NVME SSD plug and play?

I'm working on upgrading my P770ZM's mass storage and am also considering a move to PCI Express for my boot drive. I have Prema's BIOS which enables support for NVME on this model. That being the case, is adding such a drive a plug and play affair, assuming of course I have the proper driver loaded on my Windows installation media? Are there any settings within the BIOS I need to change to ensure the drive works properly?


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yep, its basically plug and play. best bet is to reset the bios to default settings when installing the NVME drive

 

Cool. Does the SATA controller need to be set as RAID or AHCI? I only ask because IIRC, when it's set for RAID, there is some option that becomes available relating to PCI-E storage.

 

It can be in either mode.

 

Which disk exactly do you have or would you like to buy?

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Either the OCZ RD400 or Samsung 950 Pro, more likely the latter.

 

Yup just set to AHCI I believe and yes pretty much plug and play...

 

What you can do that? I never know that was possible. Am i able to use both sata and nvme at the same time though?

 

sure. just be aware that on the ZM series u can either use 2 m.2 pcie drives with 2 lanes or one pcie drive with 4 lanes and one m.2 sata drive...

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I'm sure it can't use 2 PCIE drives.. It can use 2 m.2 SATA drives or 1 m.2 PCIE and 1m..2 SATA drive...

 

sure u can, ure just restricted to 2 lanes each

although im not sure if both the P770ZM and the P750ZM can do this, but the 15 inch model is capable of it.

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It wasn't my initial plan but I snagged a NVME Samsung SM951 for a great price on fleBay so that's what I'll be running with.


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Yeah, those both are able to do it, they are almost identical for specs for the most part.

 

i know, i just remember some small but significant difference between the two concerning their m.2 slots. might have been the LTE functionality, not sure though...mightve mixed up smth there

in any case, raid with two pcie drives is indeed possible, just with 2x2 lanes...

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With a 2x restriction then I would just stick with a single fast drive on the 4x unless capacity was a concern.

 

word

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One more line of inquiry before I actually perform the upgrade: Does the BIOS need to be set for UEFI or can it still run in legacy mode? What, if any, BIOS settings should be used for compatibility and performance? Do the drivers for the Samsung 950 Pro work for the SM951 in Windows 10? I've found conflicting information.

 

I have it on UEFI in my P771ZM... That's the only way Windows 10 will work properly with NVME drives.. I am using the 950 Pro driver on Windows 10 here.. Works fine..

 

Figures. I was hoping to clone my existing SSD but that's not going to happen now. Oh well. Not a huge deal.


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wouldnt do that in any case. best to always do a fresh install to get the best performance possible. dont be lazy!

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My last reinstall was literally the day before I bought the NVME drive so it's less than 2 weeks old.


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Finally got around to installing the SM951. I expected it not to be detected by the BIOS, but upon setting the system to UEFI, the Windows installation routine picked up the drive just fine. But, after installing Windows, the drive was still not detected by the system - it would keep trying to boot off my OS installation media. If I took the thumb drive out, it would kick back a "no bootable device" error. After about 2 hours of struggling, it turns out that my laptop had v1 of Prema's system BIOS. I flashed it with v2, and everything is kosher now. Everything seems to be working great. I'm on the stock Windows 10 NVME driver for now, but I may try the Samsung one down the line.

 

I'd take an image backup before switching driver just in case

 

I´ll just ask my question in this thread. My P771ZM has a single 512 GB 850 Pro and I´m getting tired of juggling games. Also my newly installed Unreal Engine and Ark Devkit ate up 90 GB..
The different slot possibilities confuse me, can I pop another 850 Pro in there?

 

Yeah. If I remember correctly 2x M.2 and 2x 2.5"

 

There are 2 2.5" bays and 2 M.2 slots. One M.2 is next to the 2.5" bays and can accommodate a x4 PCI-Express drive with Prema's BIOS. The other slot is next to the BIOS battery, right below one of the heatsink assemblies.

 

Thanks both. I´ve ordered a discounted 850 Pro 512 GB. That should hold me nicely.
Having abit of remorse though, would a 950 Pro work? I have Premas Bios from like a year ago. It´s double the cost from this new 850 Pro though.

 

It depends on the type of work you'll be doing on it. They're both great drives. - and yes, the 950 Pro will work (it won't display in the BIOS setup utility, but Windows should see it).

 

I'd just stick with the 850 Pro, there's no reason at this point to regret buying one, they're still great drives.

 

save your money for xpoint drives, coming out by the end of this year

 

For double the price, I wouldn't worry about it. I only went with a NVMe drive myself because I got it cheap. The 850 Pro is still plenty good.

 

Even the SM951 I got is good enough.. Xpoint is really not worth it in my use case..

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Hello Saturnotaku,

I'm trying to solve the same problem with my P770ZM but I cant find the Prema BIOS.
I leftt a request to @Prema but no luck so far.
The Clevo Center @Portugal doesn't answer my requests for assistance (I've been waiting for the last 3 months) so I've decided to try to upgrade the BIOS myself, but cant' find the BIOS nowhere for download.
Could you please give some help??

Thanks for your patience!
Best regards,

Margarida

 

BIOS files are usually provided by your reseller.

 

Where?

 

Smoke signals outside your window

 

Hello @Prema!!!

I left a request here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/prema-bios-questions.795536/page-4#post-10622013

Maybe no the right place....Sorry I'm a newbie!!!

Can you please help me??

I finally got an answer from Clevo Center and the say they still don't have the BIOS version for my model.

It seem a bit strange because of this thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/p770zm-prema-bios-nvme-ssd-plug-and-play.793532/

Either way, I'm kind a desperate!!!

Thanks a lot!

Best regards,

Margarida

 

OK, I gotcha...check your PM!

 

@Prema Is the best!

Thanks a lot,

Margarida

 

Hello Saturnotaku,

I finally got the Prema BIOS mod v2 installed, (thanks to Prema of course), but now I'm struglling with you same problem, cant make the Bios to recognize the NVME m.2!!
I'm not a gamer, so, I'm a bit afraid to mess around the BIOSsettings.

Can you please help me, I just need the BIOS to recognize the M.2 so I can install Win10 fresh!

Thanks.

Best regards,

Margarida

 

Hello guys,

Finally made it!!!

After struggling for a few hours, got a hint in a youtube video to unplug all the others SSD and HDD and, voilá, it worked!!

The M.2 NVME its finally working, just finished installing Win10 and, only one word, SMOKING!!!! Its ultra fast.

Thanks Prema, thanks everyone in the forum.

Next upgrade I wont bother you, its just more RAM!!!

Best wishes all!!

Margarida

 

Hey all, I stumbled upon this thread because like many others I have a P750ZM that I have owned for 3+ years and bought it for many reasons including the ability to later add a NVMe M.2 drive. So, I ordered a Samsung 960, cloned my OS, and then ran into the issue of the BIOS not discovering it as a boot device. I don't post on here often enough to PM, but I really need the Prema Bios v2 that addresses this issue. I really appreciate any help. Thanks All!

 

wanna help from you , i have p770zm-g, but i cannot download the prema bios as the website has no download link. can you give me link for download of your files that you already download

 

can share with me, bcause o have p770zm-g but unable to get the prema bios.. bought it 2 years ago, plan to install nvme..tq

 

best to contact @Prema directly, he understandably doesnt like it when his work is distributed without his permission

 

i want to contact prema directly but i cannot private msg or contact him..

 

Hi, apparently Prema is very busy at the moment: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/clevo-bios-thread.416916/page-432#post-10685077

I'd also very much appreciate Prema's work on supporting NVMe - got a 2015 Origin EOS-17X, its SM951 m.2 PCIe SSD died, Origin support said the SM951 is NVMe and suggested replacing with another NVMe (Samsung 960 EVO). Unfortunately the SM951 was actually an older version with AHCI and the stock BIOS (which reports it's a P770ZM) doesn't recognize NVMe.

 

A SATA based one is practically for the vast majority of people just as fast. The new 860 series is very good.

 

Fair point. Was hoping for more speed in video editing, though - 4K is huge

hm, might end up getting a second 2.5" disk for the OS, NVMe works fine once Windows loads its driver.

 

It would also let you use all capacity and bandwidth for that scratch space.