Bifurcation on R5E10

[Aysberg]

Just read in other forums, that people did mod their BIOS to turn on bifurcation on the x99 platform. ASRock even released an beta BIOS with bifurcation support.

I want to run an ASUS HYPER M.2 X16 CARD on my Rampage V Edition 10 with two NVMe drives and bifurcation is a must for this plan.

Don't know if there are still people at ASUS supporting this platform, but if in any way possible, can you release a BIOS with those options or send me a beta for testing? (and if you are on it, can you release a X99-E WS version too) Or is there someone with the knowledge and can release a modded BIOS?

A link to an How To would be fine too. Would try it by myself.

Thanks for the support and help

PS If I missed this option in the BIOS, please ignore my request and just point me to the setting

[davemon50]

I was looking for just such a thing yesterday and didn't find it, the model you indicated above. However why do you need bifurcation, if you put this in the x16 slot won't the card provide the bifurcation for you? Why do you need it directed from the BIOS? Also, does that only work for RAID configurations?

[Aysberg]

No this card is "dumb". It just connects max four drives via PCIe x4 interfaces to the boards, there is no real logic on this board nor any RAID chip or PLX chip. If you have no bifurcation you can only use one drive. RAID can be managed via VROC if the mainboard supports it (x299, but rather picky on the used drives and you may need a license dongle) or just add the drive to a software RAID in your OS.

On my x299 Rampage VI Extreme (which supports bifurcation), I got much better numbers going the RAID in software route and I don't had this license hassle or needed to use optane drives. In BIOS you can chose between VROC or something called DATA mode (I think), which simply connects up to four separate, if you use a x16 slot, drives to your system.

BTW Currently Amazon Uk has the ASUS HYPER M.2 X16 CARD for a rather good price.

[davemon50]

Thank you for the explanation, much appreciated. I doubt you will get the feature you asked for added by Asus unfortunately. But I suppose you don't know unless you ask. I guess if your card had the kind of feature onboard that I was suggesting, it would probably require a lot more cooling anyway.

I read up more on this after replying the first time. It seems like a good idea in theory, but I could imagine lanes becoming a shortage in a hurry if you also have heavy graphics.

[Aysberg]

As stated in the manual and also on a block diagram you can find here this board is capable of running a x16/x16 or x16/x8/x8 or x16/x8/x8/x8 setup.

In any combination, when only plugging one PCIe x4 NVMe in a slot I am wasting at least 4 lanes. Or in my case, as I want to run at least two NVMe drives and must use two slots, I am wasting 8 lanes. That's quite uneconomically, if the tech is on board and just hidden for the user

And if it's there why not give it to the users? Those who needed it in the past have changed to another platform a long time ago, so ASUS can bring this BIOS without a loss in x299 sales. And as I stated ASRock has done it and this could be a reason to change manufacturers in the near future, something ASUS should think about.

And to the ASUS engineers, here seems to be a guide

Seems we have those settings in our BIOS file...

Setting: IOU2 (IIO PCIe Port 1), Variable: 0x53B {05 91 BC 04 C7 04 64 02 01 00 3B 05 10 10 00 FF 00}
0x17307 Option: x4x4, Value: 0x0 {09 07 CC 04 00 00 00}
0x1730E Option: x8, Value: 0x1 {09 07 4F 0A 00 00 01}
0x17315 Option: Auto, Value: 0xFF {09 07 76 03 30 00 FF}
0x1731C End of Options {29 02}
0x1731E Setting: IOU0 (IIO PCIe Port 2), Variable: 0x533 {05 91 C0 04 C7 04 65 02 01 00 33 05 10 10 00 FF 00}
0x1732F Option: x4x4x4x4, Value: 0x0 {09 07 C8 04 00 00 00}
0x17336 Option: x4x4x8, Value: 0x1 {09 07 C9 04 00 00 01}
0x1733D Option: x8x4x4, Value: 0x2 {09 07 CA 04 00 00 02}
0x17344 Option: x8x8, Value: 0x3 {09 07 CB 04 00 00 03}
0x1734B Option: x16, Value: 0x4 {09 07 50 0A 00 00 04}
0x17352 Option: Auto, Value: 0xFF {09 07 76 03 30 00 FF}
0x17359 End of Options {29 02}
0x1735B Setting: IOU1 (IIO PCIe Port 3), Variable: 0x537 {05 91 C4 04 C7 04 66 02 01 00 37 05 10 10 00 FF 00}
0x1736C Option: x4x4x4x4, Value: 0x0 {09 07 C8 04 00 00 00}
0x17373 Option: x4x4x8, Value: 0x1 {09 07 C9 04 00 00 01}
0x1737A Option: x8x4x4, Value: 0x2 {09 07 CA 04 00 00 02}
0x17381 Option: x8x8, Value: 0x3 {09 07 CB 04 00 00 03}
0x17388 Option: x16, Value: 0x4 {09 07 50 0A 00 00 04}
0x1738F Option: Auto, Value: 0xFF {09 07 76 03 30 00 FF}

[FalloutBoy]

I have an R5 Edition 10 with a 6900K

In all the following cases I am referring to the PCIE slots which are mechanically x16 only.

I run an Aorus Gigabyte Extreme Edition 10 on Slot 1
Slot 2 is blocked as the Aorus has a massive heatsink.
Slot 3 is an Avago 9361-8i SAS3 Raid controller
Slot 4 is an Mellenox Connect X2 10Gb Ethernet card
My system also has an Samsung 960Evo 1Tb NVME.

I can run all of the above BUT my video card goes to x8, if I change the BIOS setting to 4 Way config x16,x8,x8,x8 my video card goes to x16 BUT my NVME is disabled.

ASUS needs to either add Bifurcation support to this motherboard or at the very MINIMUM let the user decide how many lanes get assigned to each device, we did not buy these expensive boards for ASUS to control what we can do and shove these arbitrary decisions down out throats or to have our hands held, most of us buy boards like these because we know what we are doing.

Failing that it might be time to say screw you ASUS and start modding our own BIOS's with PCIe lanes set how we want them - this arbitrary stuff is just hopeless.

[FalloutBoy]

As stated in the manual and also on a block diagram you can find here this board is capable of running a x16/x16 or x16/x8/x8 or x16/x8/x8/x8 setup.

In any combination, when only plugging one PCIe x4 NVMe in a slot I am wasting at least 4 lanes. Or in my case, as I want to run at least two NVMe drives and must use two slots, I am wasting 8 lanes. That's quite uneconomically, if the tech is on board and just hidden for the user

And if it's there why not give it to the users? Those who needed it in the past have changed to another platform a long time ago, so ASUS can bring this BIOS without a loss in x299 sales. And as I stated ASRock has done it and this could be a reason to change manufacturers in the near future, something ASUS should think about.

And to the ASUS engineers, here seems to be a guide

Seems we have those settings in our BIOS file...

I Read on another forum related to BIOS modding that the code is already there it is just not exposed to the UI as ASUS has chosen not to enable it.