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hosedup · ‎11-26-2015

Im starting this thread with the hopes of bringing together information about these two wonderful devices and how to make them play nicely.
So, this is what ive found so far.
There is an inherent incompatibility between these two devices that prevents the 950 from installing and running correctly. Ive gotten the run around from both Asus and Samsung tech support concerning this problem. I even created a conference call but that devolved to name calling. Samsung claims its a buggy BIOS, Asus claims its a buggy memory controller. I expected this, especially after talking to aeolisio. Apparently hes had the same experience.

The problem that I have is when attempting to install win10 from a USB stick (stick built using Microsoft's utility) I get all way to where I select the target drive and the SSD is not listed. Ive tried formatting the drive MBR and GPT and either helps. I tried using the "have disk" and loading Samsung's win7 driver for the 950 but that did not work either. With each of these attempts, I tried many different BIOS settings as well. Nothing worked.

But, I did manage to get the SSD to work and wow, is it fast. I have the G752VL with win10 and can go from pushing the power button to the desktop in under 9 seconds. Here is how I did it:

-Installed the SSD in the M.2 slot then booted. Win10 picked up the drive and installed the drivers for it.
-Partitioned the drive, it worked fine and was very quick.
-Next I ran the data migration tool from Samsung to image the mechanical drive to the SSD.
-Finally, shutdown and removed the mechanical drive. Windows booted off the SSD.

Windows 10 boots stupid fast. Games load faster than I have ever seen. Its crazy.

But, its not all sunshine and rainbows, there is a down side.
-I cant install the Samsung driver. When I try, the install program states that the Samsung SSD is not installed......even though in device manager, it is listed as "NVMe Samsung SSD 950" under disk drives.
-Samsung Magician will install but will not work. It does not recognize the SSD as a Samsung device. The 950 is listed as "aSsmnu gSS D59 0RP O15G2 B (0.00 GB)" The serial number as reported in Magician is similarly scrambled. It looks to me like some sort of translation or buffer problem.
-I have no idea if garbage collection or TRIM is working.

Another thing, xoticpc sells custom G752 systems and offers the Samsung 950 Pro in a single and RAID 0 configuration. I've spoken with their tech support but they wont tell me how they are pulling this off.

So theres everything that I know. I can add screen shots if desired. My hope here is to get the ball rolling of hopefully finding a solution to this problem.

aeolisio · ‎11-26-2015

Without trim or samsung management you will have a drastically shortened lifespan and will void any warranty for that drive it still doesnt make sense to not use the sm951 that is fully compatible.
Run a crystaldisk and compare to the sm951 numbers when it was released and installed on a g751. It runs even faster now but for an apples to apples comparison.

3d printed parts and accessories for the G751. You know you want something better than OEM ->https://www.shapeways.com/shops/aeolisio[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

hosedup · ‎11-27-2015

I completely agree concerning the TRIM and samsung management. I am most likely going to order the AHCI SM951 and return the 950 pro. If you are interested, here are the benchmark I get from samsung magician:

navis995 · ‎11-27-2015

Well my boot time using Evo 840 250GB is 7s and shutdown somwhere the same so the difference is really not here.
The only difference you'll see between these is in writing/reading and even there it won't be that much of a difference that would have been worth the price.

Asus Rog G750JZ
Screen: 1920x1080 17.3'
CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-4700HQ (3.4Ghz @ -70mV)
GPU: GeForce GTX 880M 4GB (OC +125Mhz Core, +600Mhz Memory @ 1.062V)
RAM: Samsung 32GB 1600MHz
Storage #1: Samsung Evo 840 250GB
Storage #2: Samsung Evo 850 500GB
Storage #3: Seagate Barracuda 2TB
Storage #4: Samsung Evo 128GB MicroSD

jaydee79 · ‎11-28-2015

IM having the same issue with my M2 Samsung 950 Pro NVMe drive on a G752VL, bios 208 i believe.

I was only able to get windows onto the drive by using Samsung's Migration tool but although it is faster, I do not believe it is using Samsungs NVMe.

The magician show actually two copies of the drive that I clones and NOT the Samsung drive, it will show the weird Samsung model and stuff id I disconnect the S\ATA drive.

I figured the drive does not show as a solid state drive in device manager so something is wacked up in the partitions etc I think. I also do not see the Samsung NVMe COntroller in device manager and the drover will not install.

I tried to load windows again on the drove but the drove is not listed and I do not see any options in the BIOS to configure the drive as NVMe.
The drive properties in the bios are correct under Intel Rapid Storage Technology listing it as NVMe and PCIe. Given that it seems to be under the IRRST, makes it sound like its being treated as AHCI maybe?

As of now the computer is faster but I do not believe the bench marks im showing are accurate as they are barely faster than the 5400 spindle drive.

I would email support but Ive been waiting almost a week for my last response from them and there is no actual hardware compatibility list that i can find from ASUS to say if I made the right choice.

ASUS, we have spent a lot of money on our hardware and we deserve support for what are now industry standard drives. Even if there was a firmware update for the drive, i couldn't do it.

Slavisha · ‎12-02-2015

I had same issue and i got it working with my Samsung 950. Here are the steps:
1. Create the bootabe USB dongle with Windows 10 using Rufus with GPT
2. Put the additional Intel/ACHI drivers in to the support folder on the created USB. These drivers will need to be loaded manually later during the installation.(Make sure you unzip the file before you place it on USB. The link for download is below.
http://www.filedropper.com/f6flpy-x64

2. Install Samsung 950 HDD in to the m.2 ( I also took my primary HDD out that had windows 10 installed on it already.)
3. Run the computer and boot from the USB.
4. Once you go through first few screens choosing the fresh install and get to the dialog where it your drive is not recognized, select browse, and drill down to the support folder where you left the drivers. Once you chose the driver and it took about 2 min to load it and myou should be able to see your Samsung HDD there.

Now theres another solution that also worked.
On Samsung site you can download Samsung cloning tool. It will clone entire HDD where the windows is installed to the Samsung 950 drive including MBR and everything else. This worked but i always prefer clean install so I had to find the way to make first choice to work.

I hope this helps.
I apologize for my language, English is not my native language.

scubahalo · ‎12-05-2015

Slavisha wrote:
I had same issue and i got it working with my Samsung 950. Here are the steps:
1. Create the bootabe USB dongle with Windows 10 using Rufus with GPT
2. Put the additional Intel/ACHI drivers in to the support folder on the created USB. These drivers will need to be loaded manually later during the installation.(Make sure you unzip the file before you place it on USB. The link for download is below.
http://www.filedropper.com/f6flpy-x64

2. Install Samsung 950 HDD in to the m.2 ( I also took my primary HDD out that had windows 10 installed on it already.)
3. Run the computer and boot from the USB.
4. Once you go through first few screens choosing the fresh install and get to the dialog where it your drive is not recognized, select browse, and drill down to the support folder where you left the drivers. Once you chose the driver and it took about 2 min to load it and myou should be able to see your Samsung HDD there.

Now theres another solution that also worked.
On Samsung site you can download Samsung cloning tool. It will clone entire HDD where the windows is installed to the Samsung 950 drive including MBR and everything else. This worked but i always prefer clean install so I had to find the way to make first choice to work.

I hope this helps.
I apologize for my language, English is not my native language.

Thanks for the tip, Slavisha! Windows always seemed a bit flaky with the cloning method but with this clean install it's running sweet. Unfortunately, the Samsung drivers still won't install, the NVMe controller is still missing, and Magician doesn't work. We're getting there though!

scubahalo · ‎12-07-2015

I found an extracted and compiled (so called pure) version of the latest Samsung NVMe Drivers and tried to use them during Windows installation but no love. I tried a few others too but Windows will only load the IRST drivers. Here's a link if anybody wants to give it a whirl (they're under section G at the bottom of the spoiler box):

http://www.win-raid.com/t29f25-Recommended-AHCI-RAID-and-NVMe-Drivers.html

blastashes · ‎12-07-2015

Currently, after custom ordering my G752VT from XoticPC and choosing to upgrade to the 256GB 950 Pro

I have had no issues to this date booting or running the computer in any scenario.

I would imagine any issues with making the drive compatible or installing it were handles by people working for XoticPC

which is a good thing for me because i know nothing about messing with the bios :).

But for sure I can say at least in my experience, I am having 0 compatability issues and all is well.

StanDiego · ‎12-09-2015

Is there any information that you can share about your configuration; details or screenshots from the applicable BIOS and Device Manager pages, for example. Is an NVME driver loaded in Device Manager? How is the device displayed in the BIOS? How is it displayed in Disk Manager?

blastashes wrote:
Currently, after custom ordering my G752VT from XoticPC and choosing to upgrade to the 256GB 950 Pro

I have had no issues to this date booting or running the computer in any scenario.

I would imagine any issues with making the drive compatible or installing it were handles by people working for XoticPC

which is a good thing for me because i know nothing about messing with the bios :).

But for sure I can say at least in my experience, I am having 0 compatability issues and all is well.

G752 with Samsung 950 Pro SSD....new information