Greetings.

I have a motherboard with H97 chipset with a 1150 socket.

It doesnt have an m.2 slot, and only in a bios update it mentions vaguely that it adds support for nvme. I installed a evo 970 plus nvme in a pci4x slot using a pci-m2 adapter.

But having searched the internet i found posts that using a nvme as secondary storage only could be trivial for linux, instead booting from it is sth that depends on motherboard/uefi
support.

But unfortunately my system wont detect it.

$ lspci -nn | grep NVMe
$ ls -l /dev/nvme*
$ lsblk
$ sudo nvme list

..all display nothing related .

Also the manufacturer claims that
So given that and since other H97 based mobos came with m.2 slot i wonder if there
is hope in kernel recognizing my nvme or not.

Thanks.

OS: Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster) x86_64
Motherboard : H97-HD3
Kernel: 4.19.0-9-amd64
CPU: Intel i7-4790
GPU: AMD ATI Radeon RX 570

Your mobo https://www.gigabyte.com/us/Motherbo...3-rev-10/sp#sp has a PCIEX4 slot which shares lanes with the x1 slots but it may be PCIe Gen 2. The graphics card slot is PCIe x16 Gen 3.0. If you use the the PCIEx4 slot, you may need to shut off the x1 slots and configure the x4 in the BIOS since you can't use both.

As for booting, the BIOS in a system without a dedicated M.2 slot most likely won't scan the PCIe bus for disks. I think you will still need SATA or USB to boot.

deleted

Thanks. There is no bios option to disable PCIX1 slots. But there is an option to control the speed of the PCIX4 (which when set to X4 i think it practicaly disables the PCIX1 slots). But still nothing.
So my NVMe M.2 drive is not discovered on PCIe bus.
I wonder if the M.2 SSD to PCIe adapter card is not so innocent.

The pci-e adapter will have to be fully supported in bios to begin with. I mean bootable. Go there first.

Not even too sure what a pci-e storage might be presented to linux.

https://www.dell.com/support/article...drives?lang=en

I can't imagine there could be much wrong on the adapter. It just brings the PCIe lanes to the M.2 connector. The mobo may need to detect that a card is in that slot in order to disable the x1 slots and enable the x4. No BIOS support is needed after boot, since the SSD PCIe type will trigger the NVMe driver. Make sure CONFIG_BLK_DEV_NVME is =y. If it is =m, then you need to do modprobe nvme. The lspci output for my Seagate does not say NVMe, it says "Non-Volatile Memory Controller"

chomwitt,

Which BIOS version do you have?

BIOS version 7a on Gigabyte GA-H97-HD3 (rev. 1.1) adds NVMe SSD support according to this:
https://www.gigabyte.com/us/Press/News/1358

I have version 8. Strangely there is no mention of version 7a in the support/download page.

And nvme support is mentioned in version 6 .

Another troubling issue is that my motherboard wont produce sound a year now. So maybe there is a malfunction related to both issues?

Also when touching the nvme seems hot.

chomwitt,

The link I gave referred to Gigabyte GA-H97-HD3 (rev. 1.1).

Your link referred to Gigabyte GA-H97-HD3 (rev. 1.0).

It is normal for NVMes to run hot.

EDIT

An NVMe SSD does not appear within the BIOS until Windows creates the system partition with the EFI Boot Sector. The M.2 SSD contains UEFI driver information within the firmware.

https://forums.tomshardware.com/thre...pport.3097090/

I don’t think your suggested arrangement will work in Linux.

The obvious alternative is an SSD such as:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-MX5.../dp/B0764WCXCV

Track down the adapter issue by comparing lspci output with and without the adapter installed. Any differences? If they are the same it does tend to point to a hardware issue.

Thanks. I did it and i see no diff. I will try it in a different mobo but needs time.

I can't imagine there could be much wrong on the adapter. It just brings the PCIe lanes to the M.2 connector. The mobo may need to detect that a card is in that slot in order to disable the x1 slots and enable the x4.