Dell XPS 8700 BIOS does not recognize Intel 750 400GB PCIe Solid State Drive. BIOS A11

[EBabc1]

I recently purchased a Dell XPS 8700 with an Intel Quad-Core i7-4790 Processor 3.6GHz, 16GB DDR3-1600 SDRAM, 2TB 7,200RPM Hard Drive, etc. I have installed an Intel Series 750 400 GB Solid State Drive in the PCIe slot. When I log onto the BIOS the SSD drive is not shown. Dell BIOS version is A11 build July 2015. SATA mode is set to AHCI and Boot Mode is set to Legacy.

I have called Dell Technical Support and am assured that the motherboard will allow me to create a bootable Solid State Drive.

After calling Dell Technical Support several times and each time after spending between 10 and 30 minutes on the phone I have been disconnected. Once it was my fault. The other times communication to the Philippines was lost or whatever. The last time I spent over 30 minutes to be connected to the Dell Advanced Technical Support - Hardware section only to be told that it was a great deal of static on the line and then the connection was lost.

[jbenavides]

Hello EMBWayne,

The http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/product-specifications/ssd-750-spec.pdf Intel® SSD 750 Series is a PCIe* NVMe* drive and does not use the SATA protocol like standard SSD's. There are different requirements for a system to boot successfully from it, or to be able to use it as a data drive.

To use the Intel SSD 750 Series as a boot drive:

- A system based on an Intel® Z97 Chipset, Intel® X99 Chipset, or newer chipset.

- uEFI 2.3.1 BIOS settings enabled with NVMe support (latest BIOS updates)

- GPT* drive format- PCIe 3.0- Microsoft Windows® 7, 8, 8.1 or 10 operating system (or supported Linux distribution) with NVMe driver installed.

Checking the http://www.dell.com/ed/p/xps-8700/pd Specications for the Dell XPS* 8700, it features an Intel® Z87 Express Chipset. This chipset was released before the NVMe* technology was available, so booting from the Intel® SSD 750 series was not tested and may not be possible with this type of system.

We would advise to check back with the http://www.intel.com/support/oems.htm Computer Manufacturer Support for recommendations regarding NVMe drives (as boot or data drives) in your PC.

For more information, please check the following documents:

http://www.intel.com/support/ssdc/hpssd/ssd-750/sb/CS-035496.htm Intel® SSD 750 Series — Before You Buy

http://www.intel.com/support/ssdc/hpssd/ssd-750/sb/CS-035483.htm Intel® SSD 750 Series — Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

http://www.intel.com/support/ssdc/hpssd/ssd-750/sb/CS-035484.htm Intel® SSD 750 Series — Tested Motherboards

http://www.intel.com/support/ssdc/hpssd/sb/CS-035481.htm Intel® High Performance Solid-State Drives — Booting an NVMe* PCI Express* Solid State Drive