Author: parsec
Subject: How To Install Windows On A PCIe SSD
Posted: 05 Feb 2017 at 2:29am
A restart causes the PC to boot normally? That hints that the Windows 10 Fast Startup feature is causing the cold boot/startup black screen thing.
You can disable Fast Startup by doing this: You must have Admin privileges to do this. Open your Windows Power Plan (Control Panel, Power Options, or left click the Windows icon on the Task Bar and click Power Options), and on the left side click on Chose what the power buttons do. Click on Change settings not currently available, to open the Shutdown settings. The first one is Turn on fast startup, just uncheck it. Then click Save changes, and you're done.
To test it, you'll need to completely shutdown the PC, a standard Windows shutdown. Doing a restart is not testing if this works.
Did you see where it said "Restart isn't affected" next to the Turn on fast startup setting? This feature, introduced in Windows 8, saves certain data that is used to make a cold boot faster, vaguely similar to a Windows Hibernate, but just an image of the kernel and drivers. It is not used on a Restart. The same file that Hibernate uses is used for this data. With this feature enabled, we really aren't doing a full shutdown, it's a "hybrid shutdown".
If the data in that file is corrupted, or does not match what the affected hardware expects, the results will not be normal, with many random things possible. After at least one normal shutdown and cold boot, you can enable that feature again if you want to, the saved data will be created over again, and should work correctly.
If you have the Fast Boot option in the UEFI/BIOS set to anything besides Disabled, set it to Disabled for a while along with disabling Windows Fast startup.
The formatting of your 960 EVO tells me you did not do a "UEFI booting" Windows installation. You mentioned you had set the CSM, Launch Storage OpROM Policy to UEFI Only, but the 960 EVO should have been formatted as GPT, not MBR. When you used the USB flash drive to install Windows 10, in the boot order there should be two entries for the flash drive, the one you want to use will have the prefix "UEFI:" in front of the flash drive name.
Samsung M.2 NVMe SSDs have a built in "Option ROM" that allows them to boot in Legacy/MBR mode, while all other NVMe SSDs must boot in UEFI/GPT mode. The Samsung 950 Pro is known to have that built in Option ROM, but some users thought the Samsung 960 SSDs do not have it. Your experience seems to indicate that the 960's also include it.
Subject: How To Install Windows On A PCIe SSD
Posted: 05 Feb 2017 at 2:29am
 kdeuser wrote:Some interesting observations... I reloaded the Samsung NVMe driver. After that is when I could see the "NVMe" option under Advanced Settings in UEFI. The constant swapping of cards in the slots seems to have stopped, and the machine now recognizes the 960 EVO after each cold boot. The problem with Windows Startup still occurs. I am not sure why or what causes it, but searching the internet suggests this is a Windows 10 issue and not a topic for this forum. My other hard drive, SSD and DVD are attached without any effect on bios, boot or Windows startup behavior (for now...fingers crossed!). I can live with hitting the enter key when I reach the "black screen" for now. Interesting that a restart command from within Windows and the machine restarts normally! |
A restart causes the PC to boot normally? That hints that the Windows 10 Fast Startup feature is causing the cold boot/startup black screen thing.
You can disable Fast Startup by doing this: You must have Admin privileges to do this. Open your Windows Power Plan (Control Panel, Power Options, or left click the Windows icon on the Task Bar and click Power Options), and on the left side click on Chose what the power buttons do. Click on Change settings not currently available, to open the Shutdown settings. The first one is Turn on fast startup, just uncheck it. Then click Save changes, and you're done.
To test it, you'll need to completely shutdown the PC, a standard Windows shutdown. Doing a restart is not testing if this works.
Did you see where it said "Restart isn't affected" next to the Turn on fast startup setting? This feature, introduced in Windows 8, saves certain data that is used to make a cold boot faster, vaguely similar to a Windows Hibernate, but just an image of the kernel and drivers. It is not used on a Restart. The same file that Hibernate uses is used for this data. With this feature enabled, we really aren't doing a full shutdown, it's a "hybrid shutdown".
If the data in that file is corrupted, or does not match what the affected hardware expects, the results will not be normal, with many random things possible. After at least one normal shutdown and cold boot, you can enable that feature again if you want to, the saved data will be created over again, and should work correctly.
If you have the Fast Boot option in the UEFI/BIOS set to anything besides Disabled, set it to Disabled for a while along with disabling Windows Fast startup.
The formatting of your 960 EVO tells me you did not do a "UEFI booting" Windows installation. You mentioned you had set the CSM, Launch Storage OpROM Policy to UEFI Only, but the 960 EVO should have been formatted as GPT, not MBR. When you used the USB flash drive to install Windows 10, in the boot order there should be two entries for the flash drive, the one you want to use will have the prefix "UEFI:" in front of the flash drive name.
Samsung M.2 NVMe SSDs have a built in "Option ROM" that allows them to boot in Legacy/MBR mode, while all other NVMe SSDs must boot in UEFI/GPT mode. The Samsung 950 Pro is known to have that built in Option ROM, but some users thought the Samsung 960 SSDs do not have it. Your experience seems to indicate that the 960's also include it.