BIOS that meets the UEFI 2.3.1 specifications provides the following benefits:
Ability to support Windows 10 security features like Secure Boot, Microsoft Defender Credential Guard, and Microsoft Defender Exploit Guard. All require UEFI firmware.
Faster boot and resume times.
Ability to more easily support large hard drives (more than 2 terabytes) and drives with more than four partitions.
Support for multicast deployment, which allows PC manufacturers to broadcast a PC image that can be received by multiple PCs without overwhelming the network or image server.
Support for UEFI firmware drivers, applications, and option ROMs.
Note that NVMe devices run quite hot and require dedicated heat sinks. Which is why an adapter is required and why the motherboard NVME socket IS NOT compatible with PCI-E NVME.
Looking at the owner's manual, it doesn't look like the T40 system board has an M.2 slot. I couldn't find mention of M.2 support in the owner's manual, and page 77 of the manual has the board topology. The system also does not appear to have been validated with the BOSS card, which would add m.2 slots on a PCI card.
I think that the Dell user community would like a competent answer to this question. I have a Precision 3630 system with the same motherboard that has a functional m2. slot.
The images in the manual Iinked to have that connector fogged over, and I don't have physical access to one. If you're confident that is an m.2 connector, it may well be. As to the BIOS piece, we don't have a T40 in our lab, but I went through the System Setup section of the manual, and there wasn't anything that looked like it would help with this. I did find one section that may be worth looking at though, and that is the "Miscellaneous Devices" section of the F2 menu. The manual only lists an option to turn the PCI slots on and off, but it touches on it so briefly and with so little detail, that I'd check here.
However, we don't even sell m.2 aftermarket for that platform, and that's a pretty big caution flag to me. I will say that in every Dell system I've owned, they all wound up with unvalidated hardware that, for the most part, worked out. However, the unvalidated hardware I used had validated analogues. There isn't anything to indicate to me that there is a particularly great chance of success.
If you do end up testing, I very much hope it works out for you. I'd love to hear if it's as simple as plug and play, or if you had to do anything to get it working.
The built in M.2 slot is indeed disabled in the BIOS. It is hidden from the boot process, and even later if you install windows 10 Pro on another drive, windows can't see the NVME drive -- with no missing drivers.
BUT; if you put the M.2 NVME slick in a PCI-E adapter, it works, and it even boots windows!
So, minus points for Dell for making things hard, but it isn't too hard or expensive to get around.
Remember to get a m2.3 or m2.4 (metric 2mm screw of length 3 or 4 mm) screw, since nobody seems to provide those. There was the standoff in the T40, but no screw. Same with the adapter card.
The big river store sells collections of laptop screws for reasonable. One set should last even a power user for a lifetime!
I am not sure its usable..... My T40 I bought in Dec 2020 has the slot, I put in a Samsung 980 pro NVMe and I found no way to enable it in the bios, and nothing see's it. Maybe a jumper on the MB? I am putting a call into Dell Support to figure out how to enable it. Dell appears to sell NVMe drives on their website. -Bill
Finally the BIOS recognized the NVMe SSD, by using a PCIe to M2 adapter card. It is shown as a drive in the general system properties.
I could install Ubuntu 20.04 server on the NVMe drive with no trouble.
However I can't boot Ubuntu directly because I can't find a way to tell the BIOS to boot from that drive.
When "legacy mode" is selected in the BIOS setup, it just offers to boot from the CD or USB ports (with a warning stating that this option is not conceived to boot from NVMe drives).
When in UEFI mode, it just permits to select the three PCI-SATA ports, but doesn't show the NVMe drive.
The system is configured to use AHCI (as opposed to disabled or RAID), and fiddling with this option didn't have any apparent effect. The PCIe adapter is mounted on the PCIe-CPU slot, and using the PCIe-PCH slots didn't go better either.
So the question is: how do you tell the BIOS to boot from NVMe, given that the BIOS doesn't seem to give any chance to startup from that drive? Is it only possible with Windows? (does the OS really affect a responsibility of the BIOS?)
I have the latest BIOS for Ubuntu installed, version 1.4.0 (nov 2020).
The only workaround I found and will try, is installing GRUB on a USB, and setting it to redirect to the NVMe drive all the time.
Overall, it would end up having a PCIe slot occupied, and a USB port as well, for a motherboard that natively uses its own M2 port. (Just due to a lazily programmed BIOS; rather disappointing of DELL).
I am not sure if it will be a solution as you suggest, I did not have the opportunity to check it. But as you said, if there are those who can downgrade on T40 and run M.2, it will help everyone to share it here.
However, I would like to remind you that Dell does not recommend directly regarding BIOS downgrade and in cases where the product is not officially supported. As some of the fixes that come with the update may be lost. I would like to remind you that BIOS-related downloads can be risky.
speedstep
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9 Legend
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August 16th, 2021 16:00
GPT requires UEFI BIOS for booting.
For NON booting GPT works fine with windows vista 7 8 10.
UEFI Class 2.3.1 means you have secure boot in F2 BIOS settings under security.
Earlier UEFI Bios Classes DO NOT SUPPORT secure boot and DO NOT SUPPORT UEFI BOOTING.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/device-experiences/oem-uefi
BIOS that meets the UEFI 2.3.1 specifications provides the following benefits:
speedstep
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September 2nd, 2021 12:00
@h3nk3t
@hendranata
The T40 motherboard M2 socket is SATA not PCI-E. If you are looking for speed this is not the slot to use.
Secure Boot is not required for GPT UEFI BOOTING AHCI.
Non Dell hardware will NOT BOOT when secure boot is on.
Legacy CSM booting is not compatible with GPT UEFI booting.
speedstep
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September 2nd, 2021 13:00
@h3nk3t
FreeNAS and TrueNAS are not supported here.
https://www.freenas.org/
https://www.truenas.com/
FreeNAS is now TrueNAS CORE.
TrueNAS CORE is the newest STABLE release and is highly recommended for all deployments.
TrueNAS CORE is still Open, Free, and better than ever.
https://www.truenas.com/docs/core/introduction/corehardwareguide/
FreeNAS has now officially been moved to legacy status.
https://www.truenas.com/download-truenas-core/
https://www.truenas.com/docs/releasenotes/core/12.0u5.1/
Note that NVMe devices run quite hot and require dedicated heat sinks. Which is why an adapter is required and why the motherboard NVME socket IS NOT compatible with PCI-E NVME.
TrueNAS-12.0-U5.1.iso
sha256 checksum:
856ca5f5be0c9d1de5f9da325720c12fc62a7ed2f9321a4f3e5764a7bc5280d9
PGP Signature
PGP Public key (12CF7946)
Dell-DylanJ
4 Operator
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2.9K Posts
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December 11th, 2019 07:00
Hello,
Looking at the owner's manual, it doesn't look like the T40 system board has an M.2 slot. I couldn't find mention of M.2 support in the owner's manual, and page 77 of the manual has the board topology. The system also does not appear to have been validated with the BOSS card, which would add m.2 slots on a PCI card.
https://topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/poweredge-t40_owners-manual_en-us.pdf
https://topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/poweredge-t40_owners-manual2_en-us.pdf
jochen_ch
2 Posts
0
December 17th, 2019 00:00
Looking at the pictures of the board, a connector is installed. To me it seems to be a question whether it's enabled in the BIOS.
Dell_in_Tahoe
2 Posts
2
December 20th, 2019 00:00
I think that the Dell user community would like a competent answer to this question. I have a Precision 3630 system with the same motherboard that has a functional m2. slot.
Dell-DylanJ
4 Operator
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2.9K Posts
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December 20th, 2019 09:00
The images in the manual Iinked to have that connector fogged over, and I don't have physical access to one. If you're confident that is an m.2 connector, it may well be. As to the BIOS piece, we don't have a T40 in our lab, but I went through the System Setup section of the manual, and there wasn't anything that looked like it would help with this. I did find one section that may be worth looking at though, and that is the "Miscellaneous Devices" section of the F2 menu. The manual only lists an option to turn the PCI slots on and off, but it touches on it so briefly and with so little detail, that I'd check here.
However, we don't even sell m.2 aftermarket for that platform, and that's a pretty big caution flag to me. I will say that in every Dell system I've owned, they all wound up with unvalidated hardware that, for the most part, worked out. However, the unvalidated hardware I used had validated analogues. There isn't anything to indicate to me that there is a particularly great chance of success.
If you do end up testing, I very much hope it works out for you. I'd love to hear if it's as simple as plug and play, or if you had to do anything to get it working.
Dell_in_Tahoe
2 Posts
3
January 3rd, 2020 13:00
Finally got my T40, and an NVME drive to use.
Here are my findings.
The built in M.2 slot is indeed disabled in the BIOS. It is hidden from the boot process, and even later if you install windows 10 Pro on another drive, windows can't see the NVME drive -- with no missing drivers.
BUT; if you put the M.2 NVME slick in a PCI-E adapter, it works, and it even boots windows!
So, minus points for Dell for making things hard, but it isn't too hard or expensive to get around.
Remember to get a m2.3 or m2.4 (metric 2mm screw of length 3 or 4 mm) screw, since nobody seems to provide those. There was the standoff in the T40, but no screw. Same with the adapter card.
The big river store sells collections of laptop screws for reasonable. One set should last even a power user for a lifetime!
sherych
1 Message
0
December 29th, 2020 11:00
Hi, this maybe old, but I was wondering can you confirm which adapter card did you use to have a NVME drive work in poweredge t40?
BigBillSD
1 Message
0
February 15th, 2021 08:00
I am not sure its usable..... My T40 I bought in Dec 2020 has the slot, I put in a Samsung 980 pro NVMe and I found no way to enable it in the bios, and nothing see's it. Maybe a jumper on the MB? I am putting a call into Dell Support to figure out how to enable it. Dell appears to sell NVMe drives on their website. -Bill
Intel 8088
2 Posts
0
April 7th, 2021 01:00
https://dl.dell.com/topicspdf/poweredge-t40_owners-manual_en-us.pdf
Page 78: NOTE: M.2 connector on system board is not functional or supported in PowerEdge T40.
I have one on order. I don't know if I am disappointed or not.
Good luck
digi2
2 Posts
0
April 24th, 2021 03:00
I have successfully used a Conceptronic EMRICK05BS PCIe to NVMe adapter, but I'd say that any card would do.
My understanding is that it just adapts the form factor, i.e. its is just wiring, mapping PCIe lanes to M2 wires. (am I oversimplifying the matter?).
The drive can be read and written to, but in my case cannot be used for booting.
Hope this helps.
digi2
2 Posts
0
April 24th, 2021 03:00
Finally the BIOS recognized the NVMe SSD, by using a PCIe to M2 adapter card. It is shown as a drive in the general system properties.
I could install Ubuntu 20.04 server on the NVMe drive with no trouble.
However I can't boot Ubuntu directly because I can't find a way to tell the BIOS to boot from that drive.
The system is configured to use AHCI (as opposed to disabled or RAID), and fiddling with this option didn't have any apparent effect. The PCIe adapter is mounted on the PCIe-CPU slot, and using the PCIe-PCH slots didn't go better either.
So the question is: how do you tell the BIOS to boot from NVMe, given that the BIOS doesn't seem to give any chance to startup from that drive? Is it only possible with Windows? (does the OS really affect a responsibility of the BIOS?)
I have the latest BIOS for Ubuntu installed, version 1.4.0 (nov 2020).
The only workaround I found and will try, is installing GRUB on a USB, and setting it to redirect to the NVMe drive all the time.
Overall, it would end up having a PCIe slot occupied, and a USB port as well, for a motherboard that natively uses its own M2 port. (Just due to a lazily programmed BIOS; rather disappointing of DELL).
Thanks for your help
DELL-Erman O
Moderator
Moderator
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2.2K Posts
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June 16th, 2021 01:00
Hello,
I am not sure if it will be a solution as you suggest, I did not have the opportunity to check it. But as you said, if there are those who can downgrade on T40 and run M.2, it will help everyone to share it here.
However, I would like to remind you that Dell does not recommend directly regarding BIOS downgrade and in cases where the product is not officially supported. As some of the fixes that come with the update may be lost. I would like to remind you that BIOS-related downloads can be risky.
Please take a look if you want to downgrade this article https://dell.to/3xr2tb2
Hope this will helps!
uomodimondo94
5 Posts
0
June 16th, 2021 01:00
Downgrade bios can help?
dell t30 whit downgrade bios nvme slot on mainboard work...
Who try it?