Overclock.net banner

Attention Kingston HyperX Predator M.2 Owners who are installing Windows 10:

62K views 226 replies 67 participants last post by  Bananasik 
#1 ·
Brief Backstory:
Windows 10 install has taken over 12 hours to reach 17%. I tried every method of starting the install, made sure all updates were ready, and even clean installed Windows 8.1 to no avail. The install is still ludicrously slow. Obviously this is insane on such a fast drive so I start looking around for others with a similar issue. Our local forum member Qu1ckset seems to have the same exact issue, and the common thread is that we are both installing to a 240gb Predator M.2 drive.

I plan to reach out to Kingston to see if they have any tips, but in the meantime, for the sake of data collection/finding a known solution if it exists, I'd love to get the input from other owners on how their Win10 installs are going.

Things we have more or less confirmed:
  • Both of us (perhaps foolishly) tried to force the update in various ways rather than letting it roll out naturally. Maybe Microsoft has yet to roll out the fix so held off giving it to us.
  • Other drives plugged in have no effect on speed.
  • The drives are not full (mine is nearly empty).
  • Neither wuauclt.exe or the Media Creation Tool show any performance differences
  • Clean install of Windows 8.1 before upgrade doesn't help

Thanks in advice for any help/info.
-alcal
 
See less See more
#2 ·
I can confirm all the above things and on my last attempt 14hours for 10% of the update my Kingston M.2 HyperX Predator SSD had only 69GB used.

The only difference between me and @alcal is that I'm trying to upgrade from Win7 Home SP1 and he is coming from 8.1

So stumped on what I should do...
 
#3 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by alcal View Post

Snip
Is your SSD in legacy or UEFI ?

I know mine is set to Legacy
 
#5 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by kckyle View Post

using win 10 on my predator, after it took more than 2 hours to get to 5 percent i i gave up, cloned my os onto another ssd, updated it to win 10, and thn cloned it back to the predator. now i can't get it to sleep lol
Lol ugh so close to a solution...

Another member @Digitalwolf same issues
Quote:
Originally Posted by Digitalwolf View Post

I have the M.2 Predator as well and same thing. So I had the bright idea to install Win 8.1 on my empty SSD (Samsung 840 pro) and that went super fast. Activated etc thinking I would do a clean install on my M.2. Well the clean install from USB installs just fine on the M.2 but... then I end up with the "your key has been blocked by Microsoft" even tho I had already activated the upgrade on the same exact pc. Every piece of hardware is exactly the same etc so I just spend my time reading posts from all the other people that can't get their clean install to activate. Random fyi.. my copy of 8.1 was full version.

Anyway yes the upgrade is stupid slow on this drive and the reason I went the route I did was eventually I just suddenly saw "reverting to your previous.." and was trying a work around.
 
#6 ·
Just got off the line with a Kingston tech. PSA: their support is quite helpful and appears to work fairly closely with engineering. Knowing I can get someone competent to talk to makes me want to only buy Kingston products from here on out.

That aside here is what I gathered from my conversation:
  • The issue is known, and being fixed but an official solution has not been published.
  • Kingston engineers had some success "Disabling MSI within Windows to restore performance." MSI is "Message Signaled Interrupt" which is basically a way that hardware devices tell the OS they have data for the CPU.
  • Some users were able to install normally after BIOS updates. The mobo manufacturer/BIOS publisher of those users was not available however so this is hit-or-miss
  • Clean installs of Windows 10 should work fine
It seems one of the easiest options may be to go ahead with a clean install of Windows 10 and then call MS to have them sort out the license issues. I can't see why they wouldn't be able to do that. Their phone support lines were very long yesterday (40 minutes) but you can schedule a call so you don't have to sit on hold.

I am currently 23% total, 79% copying files after 14 or 15 hours so I might go ahead and install fresh. I believe I am already on the most recent BIOS for my motherboard (v1.30).

If anybody wants to play around with disabling MSI, I would say do so at your own risk. It has been a while since I studied operating systems, but I can't see this as anything better than a low-level hack which might cause more issues than it solves.
 
#7 ·
The thing is.. this issue only shows up for the "upgrade". Which you obviously have to do because of how MS handles activation. Unless you actually bought a version of Windows 10 and then you shouldn't have any issue at all. Those of us using the upgrade have this to deal with.

If you use the media tool to create a Windows 10 installation media... that will install just fine. In fact you will likely be on your windows 10 desktop faster than the "upgrade" can copy 10% of the files.

On to another issue.. is if you do a "clean" install after activating Windows 10 through an upgrade. You will likely be told that Win 10 can't activate and have that new bunch of fun. Its difficult to tell at this point if its an activation server error or what.

More or less this is the short version of my experience so far.
 
#8 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Digitalwolf View Post

The thing is.. this issue only shows up for the "upgrade". Which you obviously have to do because of how MS handles activation. Unless you actually bought a version of Windows 10 and then you shouldn't have any issue at all. Those of us using the upgrade have this to deal with.

If you use the media tool to create a Windows 10 installation media... that will install just fine. In fact you will likely be on your windows 10 desktop faster than the "upgrade" can copy 10% of the files.

On to another issue.. is if you do a "clean" install after activating Windows 10 through an upgrade. You will likely be told that Win 10 can't activate and have that new bunch of fun. Its difficult to tell at this point if its an activation server error or what.

More or less this is the short version of my experience so far.
Can you confirm that the Media Tool clean install works quickly? I have heard otherwise from Qu1ckset. Right now I'm selfishly waiting for him to guinea-pig some things before I cancel my 25% total/ 84% copying files install since I want to find out if it speeds up when reaching the "Installing drivers and features" stage.

Edit: Just read your post in the W10 Owners Club. I might go through with upgrading on a different drive followed by a clean install to the Predator and just wrestle with Microsoft for activation.
 
#9 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by alcal View Post

Can you confirm that the Media Tool clean install works quickly? I have heard otherwise from Qu1ckset. Right now I'm selfishly waiting for him to guinea-pig some things before I cancel my 25% total/ 84% copying files install since I want to find out if it speeds up when reaching the "Installing drivers and features" stage.

Edit: Just read your post in the W10 Owners Club. I might go through with upgrading on a different drive followed by a clean install to the Predator and just wrestle with Microsoft for activation.
Just because I like to torture myself.. I just reinstalled from my USB (created from the windows media tool page). It does let me at least install very quickly... The rest I guess just comes down to waiting for the activation servers to not be under so much load. Which is a guess as I personally haven't seen any concrete information on the clean install error.

I only went the route I did because my "upgrade" after around the 14 hour mark simply reverted me back to 8.1.
 
#10 ·
Another update:

I just spoke to Microsoft support and it seems that even the hard drive is tied to the upgrade license, so in the future (supposing your drive failed and you need to replace it) you would have to reinstall your old OS, do all the updates and then upgrade to W10 again. Basically this means that the drive-swap technique shouldn't work in principle, though the tech seemed somewhat overwhelmed when I asked that, so I switched to the scenario I posed above as that is the more common situation for which they must have an answer.

I might just buy a W10 pro license at this point. This is getting silly.
 
#13 ·
Hey guys.

I'm so glad I came across this thread. I've been tearing my hair out over install times being ridiculous. Long story short, taking hours to get up just a few percent doing via upgrade. Buttoned machine three times and earlier just decided to purchase a Win 10 Pro license.

In middle of a fresh install now but that's faring not much better. Been about 2-3 hours and I'm only at 78% getting files ready! So the slowness is killing me on both upgrading and fresh installing.

I'm using the 240GB version of HyperX M.2 in an Asus Rampage V Extreme. Absolutely nuts, I can install Win 8 in less than 10 minutes.
 
#15 ·
So I installed Win7 SP1 on one of my 1Tb Evo's , and upgraded to Win10 works flawsly, Now that my key is registered , I'm going to do a clean install tmr morning on my 240Gb Predator since I have to sleep now lol

Will report back on how well that goes... I hope it isn't super slow otherwise I will just contemplate selling the drive as it would be useless if I can't install windows 10 on it.
 
#16 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Qu1ckset View Post

So I installed Win7 SP1 on one of my 1Tb Evo's , and upgraded to Win10 works flawsly, Now that my key is registered , I'm going to do a clean install tmr morning on my 240Gb Predator since I have to sleep now lol

Will report back on how well that goes... I hope it isn't super slow otherwise I will just contemplate selling the drive as it would be useless if I can't install windows 10 on it.
you can install win 10 on it, just have to clone it over from a drive like i did.
 
#17 ·
Spoke with Kingston tech, said there are reports of fresh install succumbing to this too. They said they are working on it (including with MS) and probably will result in some new firmware being released. They opened a ticket for me so I'll be informed when there's an update.

I'll let you guys know what happens.

Fresh install still running, may leave machine on overnight and see what I'm greeted with in the morning :)
 
#18 ·
Thanks for this thread. I registered my account just to post my experience in the case that it helps anyone else.

I'm also a Predator M.2 owner (240GB version) and was seeming the same results when trying to install Windows 10. The install process took way longer than should be possible, moving up by 1% every 15-20 minutes or so. On one attempt i got through to the 'Setting Up Devices' step, however that hung at 95% and never completed. The same thing would happen regardless of whether it was an upgrade, a fresh install, or attempting to run the upgrade tool from USB installation media.

An earlier thread in this post had me attempt to install to another drive (which worked fine) and then move the volume. As a Linux admin by trade, I settled with gparted to move the partitions. But, I noticed that my Linux live disk was seeing some I/O errors with multiple drives. Made me wonder if the same thing was happening in Win 10.

Out of curiosity (and to quickly disable any custom storage settings I'd created - I run 6 regular drives with multiple RAIDs), I punched the BIOS reset button on my motherboard and restarted the Win 10 installation.

Up and running in 10 minutes on the Predator M.2 SSD.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure what exactly was causing the issue, but I just wanted to note that I had some pretty good luck by resetting my BIOS settings to defaults. Hopefully it helps someone

EDIT: Forgot to mention - before the BIOS reset, the M.2 drive was showing as one of the last volumes in my volume list - "Drive 4" in the Windows installer. After the BIOS reset, the M.2 drive was showing as "Drive 0". Might have something to do with it.

System specs:
ASUS X99-Deluxe
i7 5930k
32GB DDR4 PC-2400 (Crucial Ballistix)
Kingston Predator M.2 / 240G
2x Samsung 850 Pro 250G
4x WD Black 3TB
2x EVGA GTX 970
 
#19 ·
I too own a brand new Kingston HyperX Predator M.2 240GB
I tried to clean install Windows 10 via Media Creation Tool USB-Stick and it took forever before the system would not start at all.

System is:

16GB RAM
Intel Core i7 3930k
Asus Rampage IV Formula (X79)
Two Samsung EVOs (830/840) + a 750GB Hybrid SHD
Nvidia Geforce GTX 690
Aus Xonar DX

I'll try to boot up my old 8.1 installation and clone it this evening, then upgrade the system to Win 10.
Let's see how this goes...

Cheers,
itiger013

EDIT: Perhaps I'll perform a clean installation of Win 8.1 on one of the EVOs and upgrade that to W10 before cloning... don't know yet.
 
#20 ·
I'm up and running now but since I made this thread I'll post as much info as my slightly intoxicated brain can manage at the moment.

My entire process was the following:
1) Try to force upgrade using updater command (slow install resulted)
2) Try step 1 about 10 times
3) Try to use Media Creation Tool for upgrade (slow install once again).
4) Clean install W8.1 and use Media Creation tool (no improvement)
5) Step 4 again
6) Install W8.1 to a different SSD in order to get registered and then reinstall on Predator. Halfway through this, I finally got MS on the phone and they told me that the drive you upgrade on MUST be the one you use. Not sure if the tech was correct as she seemed fairly clueless, but at that point I gave up.
7) Buy license, use Media Creation Tool to make a bootable USB, installed flawlessly. You can see my system specs below (Fractal Fury).

Things I learned from Kingston (all posted earlier but w/e):
1) A fix is in progress (I should also be notified of its availability so I will let you all know if I remember)
2) Some users had success updating/playing with their BIOS version
3) A full install seems to work often but not always.

Really for me it boils down to the theoretical rigidness of Microsoft's policy on upgrades (i.e. a valid upgrade license can only be used on the hardware on which it was created, including storage device). This means that if you switch your computer, you will have to find Windows 8.1 or 7SP2 media, update it and upgrade every time you need to switch a major hardware component or your boot drive. If you can afford it, I suggest buying a fresh license, but only after attempting to install via Media Creation tool and verifying that it works for you.
 
#21 ·
Hey guys, so I finally got windows10 upgrade running on my 240GB M.2 Predator after so much trial and error!

I installed win7 sp1 on one of my 840 Evo's upgraded to win10 successfully, made sure my key was activated, then turned off my PC and disconnected the evo. Burned a win10 ISO that I made with the Media Creation Tool restarted and tried to do a fresh install on my Predator first time was taking forever so I cancelled and tried again, it only took 15minz to install win10 and its all authorized and working perfect!
thumb.gif
 
#22 ·
Thanks so much for taking the time to share your experience L33ad.

I have a very similar setup to yourself (I'll detail it at the bottom), most interestingly a very similar mobo. Maybe there's something about ASUS and/or X99 boards that make the issue worse?

This morning I loaded failsafe defaults on the BIOS, fresh install from USB, completed in less than 10 minutes!

Like yourself, I have a RAID setup, nothing fancy - just two 1TB 7200RPM drives in RAID0 for my games. The BIOS defaults of course reverted to AHCI for the SATA mode, but I kept that for the purposes of this test.

One key difference I noticed - previously my HyperX drive was showing as disk 2 (Disk 0, 1 were my RAID and storage drives). Also, Windows had created 4 partitions from it (3 of the various system reserved ones). This time around, the HyperX was drive 0. I tried to simply format the 4th partition and install here, but Windows thew an error. I decided to delete all and start again. When I re-created it via the Windows setup tool, it only made 2 partitions (one 500MB system-reserved).

From there, Windows installed without a single hitch.

After installing my various system drivers and and running a few tests - I concluded the install was stable. From there I went back into BIOS and set everything back. Aside from a blip (more on that in a sec), I got back into Windows, installed the Intel RAID driver, boom, drive shows up in disk management, all good. I've been running the system all day, working perfectly.

So thanks again, your idea saved the day. You sound like you know much more about partitioning and RAID than me
thumb.gif
, what are your thoughts about what I saw in regards to the disk labels and Windows-created partitions? Think that was somehow to blame?

So as an aside, the blip I mentioned... after setting my BIOS back to what it was, my RAID volume failed. I had to control+I to get back in and re-build it. Can't really think how that could be Windows' fault, since this was all out-with it. Maybe my mobo screwed it up when settings were updated? To be honest I've been rather concerned about my mobo, there's been a number of oddities concerning it. But that's a story for another day!

I'll be contacted still by Kingston when there's an updated firmware image, so I'll be sure to let you guys know when its available. I'd say it's a good idea to update anyway, even if we're actually running Win10 now since there's clearly something not right somewhere.

Cheers!
Scotty

Case: COOLERMASTER CM690 III ADVANCED CASE (GREEN)
PSU: CORSAIR AX1200i
CPU: Intel i7-5930K - running @ 4GHz
CPU Cooler: CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO
Motherboard: ASUS RAMPAGE V EXTREME
Memory (RAM): 16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X PREDATOR QUAD-DDR4 3000MHz X.M.P (2 x 8GB)
GPU1: 12GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX TITAN X
GPU2: 12GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX TITAN X
OS HDD: HyperX Predator 240GB M.2 SSD
Game HDD: 2 x 1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK (RAID 0)
Storage HDD: 3TB 3.5" Toshiba SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 64MB CACHE
Sound Card Creative Sound Blaster Z
Operating System: Windows 8.1 64 Bit
Monitor: ASUS ROG Swift 27" G-Sync
Keyboard: Razer Deathstalker Expert Gaming Keyboard
Mouse: Razer Deathadder Chroma Gaming Mouse
 
#23 ·
Add me as another user suffering from this. Kingston HyperX Predator 480GB (installed via HHHL adapter).

Update would hang at 2% copying files for a long time but after leaving it on overnight it was at 6% copying files. I posted the issue over at Anandtech and another user with the Predator had the same problem, so I found this through Google once I knew the common denominator.

Thanks for the info. First I'm going to go with a BIOS reset. I noticed users having issues had RAID arrays, and as do I (4-disk RAID 5). Next I'm going to try moving my image to a USB enclosed HDD (or take the drive out of the enclosure and put it in the PC completely) and upgrade, activate, then either transfer the image or fresh install on the Predator. Full specs below.

EVGA Z97 Classified
i7 4790k
32GB RAM
980 Ti reference
HyperX Predator 480GB
4x WD 3TB disks in RAID 5

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2441302
 
#25 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by kckyle View Post

please enlighten me, these of you with uefi bios, why did you guys go with the intel 750 or sm951 nvme?
Do you mean why didn't we go with the Intel 750 or sm951 ?

I went with the HyperX Pradetor because my Asus M7H had gaping free spot in between my CPU and first PCI-E slot so I defiantly had to fill it!

Went with the Pradetor for Being M.2(not PCI only like Intel)>Looks>Performance Reviews
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top