Intel 750 400GB PCI-E w/3.1 NVMe Driver Issue

[bdcintel]

I have the Intel 750 400GB PCI-E NVMe drive in a Asus z170 board running Windows 10. In the past, I've upgraded from the 1.8 to the 3.0 NVMe driver (and all previous driver versions) without issue for the past 2 years.

Starting with the 3.1 driver, I have been having issues updating. If I install the driver from Device Manager, the system reboots and Windows will fail to load. Windows attempts a repair but fails. The only option is to reinstall the OS.

If I attempt to do a clean install and "load driver" and select the 3.1 driver, the OS will not install, I just receive a generic error that it cannot proceed when loading that driver. I have to use the 3.0 driver.

The 750 400GB PCI-E drives are listed as compatible with the 3.1 driver, what is going on?

[mmeye3]

Hello Nestor,

I found the problem. Up to the driver v1.8 were entries for 32Bit and 64Bit in the file IaNVMe.inf."CatalogFile.NTAMD64 = nvme64.cat" for 64Bit and "CatalogFile.NTx86 = nvme86.cat" for 32Bit. For the drivers v3.x there is only the entry "CatalogFile = IaNvme.cat" for 32bit and 64bit. The catalog files have the same name for both 32Bit and 64Bit.This means that when installing the driver via the device manager with the "Include subfolders" function, a mixture of 32Bit and 64Bit drivers is installed. This can only be avoided by directly entering the directory, e.g. x64. Installation using the installer automatically selects the correct driver.For their customers, it would be an advantage if you put the corresponding entries back into the IaNVMe.inf file and name the files accordingly. This could prevent problems when installing drivers on Windows Core systems or when integrating the drivers into a Windows installation media.

[idata]

Hello maddin243,

Thank you for providing us this fix and feedback, we will make sure to send this to the proper team.

BDCIntel could you please let us know if it worked for you?

Regards,

Nestor C

[bdcintel]

Hi,

In the past I have used the in-box driver, upgraded to 1.8, upgraded to 3.0, then tried upgrading to 3.1 (in that order) and have had it failed. I have tried this twice, with two separate OS installs.

What version of Windows 10 was it verified on? I am running 1607. Is the 3.1 driver compatible with 1607?

Is it possible that my motherboard UEFI firmware level may be impacting this, which could explain why Intel's test did not replicate the issue?

[mmeye3]

Hi BDCIntel,

I've tested it under server 2016 "based on Windows 10 1607" and Windows 10 1703. It worked with UEFI mode and legacy mode of the BIOS. It was not necessary to install the older drivers. I could install the driver v3.1 directly. Did you install the driver via the installer?I will test it later with Windows 10 1607.

[bdcintel]

I did not use the installer. I just copied the x64 folder out of the .zip and pointed Device Manager to that folder. I also used a copy of the x64 folder to "load driver" while doing the clean install. This has worked for all previous versions of the driver.

In my situation, because the driver is detected and loads, I'm wondering if there is a firmware incompatibility between my motherboard and Intel card.