Asus Sabertooth Z97 Mark1/3.1 BIOS Update not working.

Lu Zhun · Sep 17, 2020

Hello all. I have an Asus Sabertooth Z97 Mark1/USB3.1 Motherboard and am trying to update it to the latest BIOS to see if that may help with making the M.2 NVME drive to finally work.

Current BIOS version is from 2015 (2801) and the latest is: 3503

With Asus, the files are called CAP files and supposedly has an "EZ Flash" option which I tried using.

I bought a 1TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe M.2 V-NAND SSD and 2 different M.2 PCIe x16 adapters for it, in case the original did not work, but I found that the BIOS did detect the new drive, so the drive and original adapter card is working for sure.

The current BIOS version must be new enough to accept and recognize M.2 drives since it is detected and has some sort of NVME setting listed within the BIOS, but would be nice to still have the latest available. I downloaded the latest BIOS version and extracted it to the root location of a FAT32 USB Flash Drive.

I used a brand new 16GB Sandisk Cruzer Glide USB stick, if you want to confirm that it is FAT32 for sure? Could this be the model number for it? SDCZ60-016G-AW461

Upon going to the Tool tab within the BIOS, I select the firmware update option, see the drive and file, but when I tell it to "read" the .CAP file, it says that it is not a "Valid" BIOS version and does nothing.

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If anything, I am wondering if there is a BIOS setting somewhere that is not allowing for the M.2 drive to work or even be bootable? Windows is not seeing the drive, even as a secondary option. It is not showing up in Windows at all. When I turn on Intel Rapid Storage Technology in BIOS, I get a blue screen error message that I have a screenshot of.

Thank you for the help or suggestions on what else to look for within the BIOS and try out.

Fireflycph · Sep 17, 2020

If I were you I'd try to install an older Bios before the latest. Without actually knowing this board I can tell you that often you need a minimum version to update to the latest. So do a gradual update in steps.Also note that the 3503 Bios is a beta version and therefore not fully tested. Which is odd as it supposedly is from 2018

crjdriver · Sep 17, 2020

You already have the latest bios; the 3503 is a beta bios and NOT intended for normal use. Beta bios are released for a specific reason ie support some hardware or fix an issue when using some hardware. Use of beta bios is NOT recommended unless you need a specific fix listed in the release notes.

Just my opinion however you are fighting a losing battle. NVME drive support never worked all that well until you got to the 2xx series chipsets ie Z270. On those [and later] it works flawlessly. Same thing on the AMD side. There were a few 990FX chipset boards that had a M.2 slot however those did not work well at all. With the introduction of the X370 boards, nvme works great on AMD as well.

Lu Zhun · Sep 19, 2020

Hi all, thank you for the information. I did notice Beta too and thought that odd that nothing has been updated or beta taken off by now from the name of it.

So, would you say that the safest latest BIOS version would be: 2702 from 2015? I don't even see the one I have listed on the site.. wonder why that is not there anymore?

Which motherboards are out there would you suggest that maximize or make the M.2 drive work flawlessly? You said 2xx series chip-boards for Intel? Do you know if any 2xx series motherboard would support an older i7 cpu such as an Intel Core i7-4790k?

Thank you for more information.

crjdriver · Sep 19, 2020

No. The latest bios ie release bios is 2801 [which you have] I do not know why you cannot see that bios. When I go to the support page, it is there.
Personally I would give up on using M.2 on that board however if you want to try the beta bios, use EZflash to update. If it will not work with EZflash, then throw in the towel.

Asus Sabertooth Z97 Mark1/3.1 BIOS Update not working.

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