0

I have an old GA-990FXA-UD3 mobo which was fabulous at its time (still works nice today even if it is 9 years old).

I got from a friend a NVM 256GB disk. Can I install it via a PCIe addapter and boot (Win7) from it? Or I still have to boot from my old SSD disk? Will the PCIe adaptor ruin the speed of the NVM drive?

Improve this question
3
  • 2
    First you will need a custom BIOS (it has been done for Rev. 4.0 of that board, you might be able to find one for the revision 3.0 board you have). Then you will need to add the NVMe driver to Windows as it is installing: How to get Win7 clean installed onto an NVMe SSD.
    – Andrew Morton
    Apr 23, 2021 at 9:06
  • The PCIe adaptors are 'mechanical'- so there should be little to no overhead from them.
    – Journeyman Geek ♦
    Apr 23, 2021 at 12:08
  • 1
    @AndrewMorton - My board is beyond ancient; I know. But my compiler does not complain. Still goes through the 1.5million lines of code in under 2 minutes. Everything runs smooth and fast (32GB ram, 8x 4GHz AMD FX 8350). I will not risk the BIOS upgrade. I will keep the computer until something dies or until I will feel it is sluggish. But thanks for the links!!! Interesting reading! +1
    – IceCold
    Apr 23, 2021 at 13:18

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
4

It depends on the PCIe adapter and/or the motherboard Bios whether your system can boot from it.

Either the motherboard supports PCIe storage devices on its own, in which case it will just work. (The Gigabyte web-site doesn't mention this capability, but that doesn't mean anything. It is often not mentioned in documentation at all. However, given its age, I would be very surprised if it can do it.)

Or the adapter can present an extension Bios to the motherboard Bios that adds the boot-functionality that the motherboard doesn't have on its own. (This particular adapter doesn't. Adapters that can do this are very rare and more expensive.)

Please note that your motherboard is PCIe v2.0. That means you will never get full performance from the NVMe SSD. (It still will be a bit faster than a SATA3 SSD though. Just not that much faster.)

I know see that you mention Win7.
I do hope you realize that Windows 7 is obsolete and out of support. Getting Windows 7 itself to work in such a configuration is problematic all by itself as Windows 7 was never designed to do this.
Andrew Morton just metioned that in the comments as well.

In short: As data-disk it will certainly work (albeit not at full speed).
As boot-disk things get very complicated and may not be possible at all.

You seriously need to consider if it is worth it to buy an expensive adapter for this NVMe SSD.

Improve this answer
3
  • "consider if it is worth" - Ok. Got it. Not worth it. So, I will keep using my current Samsung Evo (9 years old) drive as bootable drive. THANKS!
    – IceCold
    Apr 23, 2021 at 13:05
  • I used Windows 10 at my work place for some years. Don't like it. Ugly and unstable. I will cling to Win7 for as long as MS will keep the updates online (not long unfortunately). But the sad day when I will HAVE to migrate to Win10 is close.
    – IceCold
    Apr 23, 2021 at 13:07
  • 1
    @Gravity... I held out until about a year ago as well :-) If you need to descend into that hell (I had too because of banking and tax software) at least get W10 Pro. It gives you more control than the Home version. And resist logging in with a "Microsoft Live ID". Just make a plain local user.
    – Tonny
    Apr 23, 2021 at 13:31
2

For your motherboard, there isn't much reason to use NVMe.

The motherboard only uses PCIE 2.0 (not even PCIE 3.0), so you're not going to get the full speed advantage of the NVMe drive.

If you are currently using an HDD, a SATA SSD will give you the best speed boost, without using custom BIOS and other doubtful means.

Improve this answer
1
  • Well... the Nvme drive is coming for free :) Cannot complain if I don't get max speed from it:)
    – IceCold
    Apr 23, 2021 at 13:08

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .