990 Pro slow speeds

chiefcrust1983 · 18 Apr 2023 at 19:26

Hi All,

My Samsung 990 PRO 1TB is getting speeds half of what it should, my motherboard is Gigabyte B760M Aorus Elite AX with an i5 13600K CPU

In the bios my drive says : Samsung SSD 990 Pro 1TB NVMe 3.0x4 @ 3.0x4

Am I just missing a setting somewhere to get the full advertised speeds? Thanks.

ik9000 · 18 Apr 2023 at 20:50

Doesn't it need pcie4x4 ?

hyperseven · 18 Apr 2023 at 21:12

What are you using to benchmark its speed?

chiefcrust1983 · 18 Apr 2023 at 21:26

Using Samsung magician and crystaldisk

The drive and motherboards is gen 4, I’ve been Googling for hours and looking in the bios but no luck

The_Arbiter · 18 Apr 2023 at 21:34

Can't remember which Samsung drives had the firmware issue, might have been the 8** series? But see if a firmware update is available, and check for latest chipset drivers also from Intel

chiefcrust1983 · 18 Apr 2023 at 21:35

The_Arbiter said:
Can't remember which Samsung drives had the firmware issue, might have been the 8** series? But see if a firmware update is available, and check for latest chipset drivers also from Intel

Tried and still getting the same, I think it’s a bios setting somewhere

uscool · 19 Apr 2023 at 08:10

chiefcrust1983 said:
Using Samsung magician and crystaldisk

The drive and motherboards is gen 4, I’ve been Googling for hours and looking in the bios but no luck

You said 3.0x4 @ 3.0x4 that's gen 3 it should be 4.0, think you need to change setting in the bios to gen 4 try looking at setting CPU PCIe Link Speed / PCH PCIe Link Speed

chiefcrust1983 · 19 Apr 2023 at 08:14

uscool said:
You said 3.0x4 @ 3.0x4 that's gen 3 it should be 4.0, think you need to change setting in the bios to gen 4 try looking at setting CPU PCIe Link Speed / PCH PCIe Link SpeedTried that

chiefcrust1983 · 19 Apr 2023 at 08:15

Yes tried both of those with various combinations with no luck. Ive got a different drive arriving today to try, if that doesnt work ill try a different motherboard I think

darael · 19 Apr 2023 at 11:19

Did you install the Samsung NVME drivers? By this, I don't mean the Samsung Magician software which some people assume installs the drivers.

chiefcrust1983 · 19 Apr 2023 at 11:23

darael said:
Did you install the Samsung NVME drivers? By this, I don't mean the Samsung Magician software which some people assume installs the drivers.

No, only the Microsoft ones are installed, cant find a Samsung NVME driver for the 990 Pro anywhere. I think it points to a faulty drive or motherboard as the bios only recognises it as gen3

ik9000 · 19 Apr 2023 at 11:25

Samsung did not release custom drivers for 980/990. It's really annoying as reviews have shown that the 970 drivers improve performance on 980 if you mod them to run. A custom samsung driver would seem sensible. WTF samsung haven't done one is surprising for one of their supposedly higher-tier models.

darael · 19 Apr 2023 at 11:44

chiefcrust1983 said:
No, only the Microsoft ones are installed, cant find a Samsung NVME driver for the 990 Pro anywhere. I think it points to a faulty drive or motherboard as the bios only recognises it as gen3

ik9000 said:
Samsung did not release custom drivers for 980/990. It's really annoying as reviews have shown that the 970 drivers improve performance on 980 if you mod them to run. A custom samsung driver would seem sensible. WTF samsung haven't done one is surprising for one of their supposedly higher-tier models.

This driver supports Samsung NVMe™ SSD 970 PRO, 970 EVO, 970 EVO Plus, 960 PRO, 960 EVO and 950 PRO.

Sorry about that, you're both right. I really thought that the driver was universal for all drives. I'd still be half tempted to try it - if it does nothing, just uninstall it.

ik9000 · 19 Apr 2023 at 11:53

darael said:
Sorry about that, you're both right. I really thought that the driver was universal for all drives. I'd still be half tempted to try it - if it does nothing, just uninstall it.

In its native form it simply won't install without a correct 970 model detected. Once installed you can do various hacks to get windows to use that driver with the 980/990 before swapping the drives over but it requires a bit of work. They didn't publish a how-to but it didn't sound as simple as editing an .ini file

Grim5 · 19 Apr 2023 at 11:54

chiefcrust1983 said:
Hi All,

My Samsung 990 PRO 1TB is getting speeds half of what it should, my motherboard is Gigabyte B760M Aorus Elite AX with an i5 13600K CPU

In the bios my drive says : Samsung SSD 990 Pro 1TB NVMe 3.0x4 @ 3.0x4

Am I just missing a setting somewhere to get the full advertised speeds? Thanks.

you've got the drive in a pcie3 lane, move to pcie 4

its also possible you have one of those stupid boards where the pcie lanes are shared if they are in gen4 so if your gpu is on gen4 it may be forcing your nvme to gen3

chiefcrust1983 · 19 Apr 2023 at 11:59

Grim5 said:
you've got the drive in a pcie3 lane, move to pcie 4

its also possible you have one of those stupid boards where the pcie lanes are shared if they are in gen4 so if your gpu is on gen4 it may be forcing your nvme to gen3

The two slots for the drives are both gen4, I've tried in either slot and still get the same result. No GPU is installed, using the onboard graphics of i5 13600K

mickyflinn · 19 Apr 2023 at 12:55

chiefcrust1983 said:
The two slots for the drives are both gen4, I've tried in either slot and still get the same result. No GPU is installed, using the onboard graphics of i5 13600K

Is the m2 pcie4 running at x2 instead of x4 ?

ik9000 · 19 Apr 2023 at 13:16

mickyflinn said:
Is the m2 pcie4 running at x2 instead of x4 ?

good shout to check this. Though the mobo and bios manuals are rather poor in explaining which settings to check. OP i would see if there is an online guide or 3rd party help manual.

chiefcrust1983 · 19 Apr 2023 at 13:18

ik9000 said:
good shout to check this. Though the mobo and bios manuals are rather poor in explaining which settings to check. OP i would see if there is an online guide or 3rd party help manual.

Thanks, I'll see what I can find. Bit of a nightmare having to faff about with all this, surely it should just be automatic if it was going to work :cry:

got a different brand drive arriving today to check also

ik9000 · 19 Apr 2023 at 13:20

chiefcrust1983 said:
Thanks, I'll see what I can find. Bit of a nightmare having to faff about with all this, surely it should just be automatic if it was going to work got a different brand drive arriving today to check also

I had to change a few things in mine (MSI) bios but it was obvious what they were. They were titled helpfully - things like PCIEslot number 1 - pcie generation / pcie bandwidth.