X99 on mITX: ASRock X99E-itx/ac

It does this on the Asus Impact Z97 board, but Socket 1150 only has 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes to begin with.
I'd be amazed if this happened on the 28- or 40-lane X99 platform.
 
Blue Fox said:
Are you sure you have the NVMe one? Most of the SM951s are AHCI.

As for dual GPUs, while I'm not going to be using them, bifurcation doesn't use extra lanes since you'd still be connecting to a single PCIe x16 slot, not to mention there are plenty to go around. Only 20 are used from the CPU (which supports either 28 or 40) as the X99 PCH handles the rest (of which only 6 of 8 are used so far as I can count).
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Yep, you're right. It's AHCI -- sorry about that!
 
Picked up an Intel 750 SSD for this along with the Asus Hyper Kit. Should find out next week if this combination works for those that would like to know. Can only hope now that ASRock has announced a U.2 adapter of their own. Really do hope it's bootable on the current UEFI version.
 
Blue Fox said:
Picked up an Intel 750 SSD for this along with the Asus Hyper Kit. Should find out next week if this combination works for those that would like to know. Can only hope now that ASRock has announced a U.2 adapter of their own. Really do hope it's bootable on the current UEFI version.
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They have their own. Even show a picture of it used with this board.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/spec/card.asp?Model=U.2 Kit
 
I did mention that. While I know it will work to an extent, the main question is whether or not it's bootable as I've found conflicting reports on the internet regarding that. My SSD showed up early today, so I'll post my findings tonight.
 
Looks like I was wrong. It isn't detected at all! Not even in Windows as secondary storage. How disappointing. So, for those looking to get one of these, for the time being, it isn't going to work. Maybe the Asus Hyper Kit is to blame, but I can't think of why theirs would be any different than ASRock's offering (or MSI's for that matter).

The confusing part is that ASRock themselves say it works, but I can't think of anything I might be doing wrong: http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2729303/asrock-x99-itx-intel-750-ssd.html#16294114
 
Looks like ASRock has provided me with a newer UEFI that apparently fixes this (version 1.35). My board decided to die not long after making my last post however when I was testing 32GB DIMMs, so I'm waiting on a replacement from newegg and will test it then. Can provide it to anyone that would like to test it prior to that as well.
 
Blue Fox said:
Are you sure you have the NVMe one? Most of the SM951s are AHCI.

As for dual GPUs, while I'm not going to be using them, bifurcation doesn't use extra lanes since you'd still be connecting to a single PCIe x16 slot, not to mention there are plenty to go around. Only 20 are used from the CPU (which supports either 28 or 40) as the X99 PCH handles the rest (of which only 6 of 8 are used so far as I can count).
Click to expand...


I currently own this board and am trouble getting dual graphics to work with it regardless of any splitter combo I try.

I have tried two splitters so far:

http://www.amazon.com/Supermicro-RSC...+pci+explitter

I have also tried this one, also failed to show any graphics card display.

http://www.ameri-rack.com/ARC2-PELY423-C7_m.html

Currently I just got in the mail this one:
http://www.acmemicro.com/Product/13...E16-A-LHS-Active-PCI-E-2U-Riser-Card?c_id=356

and I'll know this weekend when I try it if this will work or not. I'm wondering if there's something in the bios I have to enable or not to support this. Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance. -Tom
 
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Unfortunately I've not tried it. I mentioned it because I saw a post on ASRock's official forum from one of their reps stating that it was in fact supported. I don't remember seeing any specific options in UEFI regarding it, but there certainly were a large number of settings and I just enabled everything.

The Supermicro riser you have there might have a better chance of working since it has a PLX chip on it going by the photo, however having proper PCIe bifurcation should make that unnecessary (I think?). Would you like to try the newer UEFI version that I was provided that isn't public yet? Maybe that will help. ASRock provided it to me when I inquired about NVMe not working. You might also have some luck asking their support staff here (it's what I did initially): http://event.asrock.com/tsd.asp
 
Blue Fox said:
Unfortunately I've not tried it. I mentioned it because I saw a post on ASRock's official forum from one of their reps stating that it was in fact supported. I don't remember seeing any specific options in UEFI regarding it, but there certainly were a large number of settings and I just enabled everything.

The Supermicro riser you have there might have a better chance of working since it has a PLX chip on it going by the photo, however having proper PCIe bifurcation should make that unnecessary (I think?). Would you like to try the newer UEFI version that I was provided that isn't public yet? Maybe that will help. ASRock provided it to me when I inquired about NVMe not working. You might also have some luck asking their support staff here (it's what I did initially): http://event.asrock.com/tsd.asp
Click to expand...

Yes, please, do let me try out the new UEFI bios, version 135 as you said correct? Also, unfortunately the other Supermicro did not work either. I plugged it in the video card in either slot and nothing showed up on the screen. ugh... this is turning into a nightmare, now I have 3 PCI-E splitter cards none of which work. Regarding the NVMe, I saw someone on tonymacx86 make it work with the samsung ssd on both the mac and windows 8.1 and getting some crazy write 1500MB/s and Read speeds, close to 2000 MB/s. How did he get it to work then?

Link here: http://www.tonymacx86.com/powermac-...970-mini-32gb-ram-m-2-ssd-pcie-gen3-x4-5.html

Page 5.
 
Blue Fox said:
Unfortunately I've not tried it. I mentioned it because I saw a post on ASRock's official forum from one of their reps stating that it was in fact supported. I don't remember seeing any specific options in UEFI regarding it, but there certainly were a large number of settings and I just enabled everything.

The Supermicro riser you have there might have a better chance of working since it has a PLX chip on it going by the photo, however having proper PCIe bifurcation should make that unnecessary (I think?). Would you like to try the newer UEFI version that I was provided that isn't public yet? Maybe that will help. ASRock provided it to me when I inquired about NVMe not working. You might also have some luck asking their support staff here (it's what I did initially): http://event.asrock.com/tsd.asp
Click to expand...


BlueFox, I just got back my old username, no longer a n00b but I cannot believe your account is still older! Can you PM me the new bios? I also sent a support ticket to asrock for help as well. Thanks!
 
In the page you linked, they have the AHCI version like most people (which has always worked). The NVMe one is difficult to come across. I'm pretty confident the new UEFI will work with my SSD. It's dated 7/23, so very recent. Should be receiving a PM shortly.
 
Blue Fox said:
In the page you linked, they have the AHCI version like most people (which has always worked). The NVMe one is difficult to come across. I'm pretty confident the new UEFI will work with my SSD. It's dated 7/23, so very recent. Should be receiving a PM shortly.
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No luck, 1.35 did not work. Will wait for Asrock to officially respond to my inquiry. Hopefully they get me a new bios that does in fact work.
 
Well, this is very interesting. I somehow stumbled upon what appear to be the debug menus on this board and I can change the bifurcation settings, along with more settings than I've ever seen before on any board ever.

Here's a screenshot: http://drunkencat.net/misc/IMG_20150731_234242.jpg

I also have a 20 minute video of all the menus. There really are that many. Uploading it as we speak.
 
Blue Fox said:
Well, this is very interesting. I somehow stumbled upon what appear to be the debug menus on this board and I can change the bifurcation settings, along with more settings than I've ever seen before on any board ever.

Here's a screenshot: http://drunkencat.net/misc/IMG_20150731_234242.jpg

I also have a 20 minute video of all the menus. There really are that many. Uploading it as we speak.
Click to expand...

BlueFox, Asrock provided a new bios for me 1.20E that now has bifurcation support. Check this thread, but what you found here is equally amazing! Looks like PCIE Bifurcation is interesting to more than myself!

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1870298&page=5
 
Not relevant to me since I'll only be running one GPU, but I found the rest fascinating too. Figured I'd share here. Sadly my bloody SSD still doesn't work. There was a hidden NVMe folder, but no settings to be changed there. Under the other debug menus, I can see that it has negotiated a link at least. Hope you can endure a 20 minute video. It's almost ready.
 
Blue Fox said:
Not relevant to me since I'll only be running one GPU, but I found the rest fascinating too. Figured I'd share here. Sadly my bloody SSD still doesn't work. There was a hidden NVMe folder, but no settings to be changed there. Under the other debug menus, I can see that it has negotiated a link at least. Hope you can endure a 20 minute video. It's almost ready.
Click to expand...

I eagerly await! Was this in your 1.35 bios? I wonder if there are even more secret settings in the 1.20E that I have.
 
Yes, it wasn't there upon my first boot though. I rebooted --> boot menu --> nothing there --> selected to go into UEFI. I'm not rebooting for fear of not being able to access it again since it seems like a fluke.
 
Blue Fox said:
Yes, it wasn't there upon my first boot though. I rebooted --> boot menu --> nothing there --> selected to go into UEFI. I'm not rebooting for fear of not being able to access it again since it seems like a fluke.
Click to expand...

I bet ASUS, Gigabyte, etc... will pay big money to see this!
 
I'd like to use this with a FTZ01 and a Xeon with a 85-90 TDP. Is there anyway to mount a Noctua NH-L12 onto this?
 
noctua may have narrow ILM kits - easiest way is to search google/noctua webiste - either that or contact noctua support.
 
I think I'm going to buy an Asus X99 board tomorrow to confirm whether or not my SSD and adapter are indeed functional. This would ensure that the board is in fact to blame.

I also disassembled the 1.35 UEFI and saw it does have the necessary NVMe driver along with the NVMe Int 13h handler, so there's still some hope. If all else fails, I'll try to modify it myself and make my own. Glad the chip is DIP and socketed in case I break it.

Curiously, the EFI shell does seem to see the SSD, but doesn't seem to fully recognize it. I'll have to test/research more.
 
Confirmed the SSD works in another system. Looks like it's the motherboard still.
 
Seems like. I was able to determine the vendor and device IDs from having it in the Asus motherboard (8086 and 0953 respectively). Booted into the EFI shell and looked around for them in the list of devices, but it's not there at all. Seeing as the disassembled UEFI ROM has all the necessary components (NVMe driver, NVMe Int 13h handler, and one other NVMe component), it's just the way the M.2 slot is setup I believe. Wish it would just act as a regular PCIe slot.

My guess is that using the ROM that has the bifurcation options (I tested it too just in case), one would be able to use the regular PCIe x4 Intel 750 SSD instead of the 2.5" one, but I unfortunately do not have a PCIe splitter like you do to test. I've responded to ASRock again and I presume they'll get back to me again within a couple days. Hope they can get this working soon as otherwise I might just switch to an 1151 board if they wind up supporting RDIMMs and there's an ITX one with M.2 support (though haven't seen one thus far).
 
Blue Fox said:
Seems like. I was able to determine the vendor and device IDs from having it in the Asus motherboard (8086 and 0953 respectively). Booted into the EFI shell and looked around for them in the list of devices, but it's not there at all. Seeing as the disassembled UEFI ROM has all the necessary components (NVMe driver, NVMe Int 13h handler, and one other NVMe component), it's just the way the M.2 slot is setup I believe. Wish it would just act as a regular PCIe slot.

My guess is that using the ROM that has the bifurcation options (I tested it too just in case), one would be able to use the regular PCIe x4 Intel 750 SSD instead of the 2.5" one, but I unfortunately do not have a PCIe splitter like you do to test. I've responded to ASRock again and I presume they'll get back to me again within a couple days. Hope they can get this working soon as otherwise I might just switch to an 1151 board if they wind up supporting RDIMMs and there's an ITX one with M.2 support (though haven't seen one thus far).
Click to expand...

I think that is why Asrock have created their own m.2 adapter because I think they were getting a black eye as a company when the only m.2 adapter that I had seen working in the x99 itx board was the msi one with a pcie redriver on it. I think FalconNW was using it in their tiki and Asrock didn't like that too much.

Either way I think we are supposed to see the asrock version available in retail soon~ish.
 
I got a response back from Noctua. They don't recommend adapting a non narrow cooler for several reasons relating to compatibility and possible obstructions on the board. What type of cooling are most using with this board?
 
Kaos_Drem said:
I think that is why Asrock have created their own m.2 adapter because I think they were getting a black eye as a company when the only m.2 adapter that I had seen working in the x99 itx board was the msi one with a pcie redriver on it. I think FalconNW was using it in their tiki and Asrock didn't like that too much.

Either way I think we are supposed to see the asrock version available in retail soon~ish.
Click to expand...
Hmm, have any more details on that? It is possible that ASRock won't release an update until their version hits retail, but there should be essentially no difference between the Asus, ASRock, and MSI versions. I know the Asus one (which is what I have) works in non-Asus boards.

Their support did get back to me saying they will need to contact the staff back in Taiwan again. Glad they're at least quite responsive.

davewolfs said:
I got a response back from Noctua. They don't recommend adapting a non narrow cooler for several reasons relating to compatibility and possible obstructions on the board. What type of cooling are most using with this board?
Click to expand...
I'm using a Corsair H105 with the adapter that was linked above.
 
Falcon Northwest has confirmed that they use the ASRock adapter, but further research indicated that the MSI version in fact was previously used. They declined to provide any more details. Only the Asus one seems incompatible then.

I've found a single high resolution photo of one: https://cms-images.idgesg.net/images/article/2015/05/falcon_tiki_guts-100586663-orig.jpg

While the adapter is not in focus, you can tell that it's longer than the Asus one and appears to be a 2280 card (Asus being 2260). This confirms that's the MSI one. Time to try and find one as they seem to be as equally elusive in the US. :(
 
Yep, they don't ship to the US though, so I'm exploring my options first before I resort to freight forwarding. Scan.co.uk is literally the only place that seems to sell it. Going to try to get MSI to sell me one as a replacement part since they include it with one of the new X99 motherboards.
 
Have the Asus one already. It does not work.

MSI would not sell me their adapter, however scan.co.uk, was open to shipping to the US, so I'm now awaiting a quote from them.
 
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