I have a new Intel NUC7i7DNKE and Samsung 970 EVO 250GB NVMe SSD. The advertised speed of this is 3,500 MB/s for read, and the most I can get is half of that, i.e., 1.8GB/s. Supposedly, BIOS version 52 was made to resolve this issue.
The NUC came with BIOS V44. I read the release notes for V56, and downloaded DNi70056.bio and applied it via the F7 bios update method. Nowhere did I see a note that said apply one BIOS update at a time to get from V44 to V56 either in the release notes or the read me. The update went fine, reset BIOS settings, set machine up, and, was disappointed to see 1.8GB/s speed. I started reading on this site, and found several with the same issue, a few threads were here:
Performance problem with Samsung 970 Pro on NUC7i7DNKE
But there were others as well. The solution was BIOS V52 apparently, which was long before I even had said machine. Later BIOS versions said nothing about needing to use the jumper recovery method. The notes for V52 say:
Fixed the issue where M.2 PCIe SSDs would run at Generation 2 speeds. and
To fix the M.2 issue, the BIOS must be installed using the jumper recovery method.
But no later BIOS have those notes. So, I thought I would simply go back to V52 with a jumper recovery method, but, it appears this is not possible as V53 says:
Due to the Intel® ME firmware update in BIOS version 0053, you can’t downgrade to version 0052 or earlier.
In case the jumper method still worked, I decided to use the jumper method for V53, it worked, and then I updated back to the more recent V57. Speed was still 1.8GB/s.
I inquired in the other thread about this but was told to make a new case so here it is. I was certainly unaware that only V52 could be used as it was not stated anywhere, nor was I aware of this defect.
Surely there is some sort of method to still update the NUC to get the M.2 SSD fix? Otherwise, all NUCs sold that have an older BIOS and people not realizing this will be permanently defective.
So, what I am wanting is a path to get my NUC7i7DNKE fixed as far as the M.2 SSD speed issue goes.