No ACHI option in Bios, new 3200 RAM set to 2667 in Bios no XMP - Predator Helios 300 PH317-55

Predator Helios 300 PH317-55
Bios V1.06
Corsair Vengeance 2x16GB 3200

Pressing Ctrl+S there is no ACHI option, there is only a VMD Controller option for the Intel RST controller driver. I've tried uninstalling the VMD drivers in safeboot, going back, and no RAID or ACHI option still. With the VMD Controller off in the Bios I can install NVMe Samsung Driver to get my NVMe SSDs updated and working so I assume ACHI is now enabled, but I went from a sub 5sec boot time to now a 20+sec boot time.

There's no option to change the RAM speed or enable XMP from the Bios to get my full 3200 instead of 2667. The original ram was 3200, why is the new ram underclocked? How do I alter this?

I also have no way of disabling Secure Boot if needed, How do I alter that if I need to later?

Is there an actual advanced menu in this Bios, not just the F1 or other what are the other hot key combos like the Ctrl+S to get there?

//Edited the content to add model name.

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xapim

@KeyserSoze microsoft forced all manufacturers to remove sata ahci mode from the bios long time ago to force everyone to stay on win10 and not be able to downgrade neither install any other OS unless its supports uefi with secure boot on also xmp its not supported on any oem/pre-made gaming laptops/desktops its only supported on mostly mobos but custom builds to disable secure boot you need to setup a supervisor pass in the bios after you will be able to disable it but remember to remove the pass straight away as it may cause issues also all bios are locked there arent any other options available for the end user just what u have and im not familiar with the vmd controller so i cant say anything about it this is the only thing i know about it (that enables direct control and management of NVMe SSDs from the PCIe bus without additional hardware adapters) its some new feature built into skylake cpus only regarding the ram downclocking its just weird as the 11th gen should support 3200mhz out of the box try a battery powerdrain followed by a bios setup defaults good luck

SporadicThought

My experience with my Predator 17 (G9-791) is that the BIOS is limited compared with other systems released at the time that had similar hardware. Some schools of thought think it wise to leave as few variables as possible to the user to prevent complications. I wonder if this is why Acer installs these half-functional BIOS'

xapim said:

@KeyserSoze microsoft forced all manufacturers to remove sata ahci mode from the bios long time ago to force everyone to stay on win10 and not be able to downgrade

I don't think that the feature is deprecated, other new systems have it enabled.

https://www.dell.com/community/XPS-Desktops/XPS-8940-how-to-swap-NVME-for-SATA-and-re-install-from-scratch/td-p/8035349

KeyserSoze

Thanks for your help and info. I found that disabling the VDM in Bios does infact convert it to ACHI if someone need that info for the future, just be sure to enable safeboot before any changes, but it is a hassle that ultimately made me change back. The Pros outweight the Cons for VDM in my particular case. I had to reinstall windows but luckily it's already a new laptop and I keep my data on 2 other SSDs. I wanted to update the firmware on my older Samsung SSDs so technically mission is complete for that. Acer needs to get in the true overclock Bios game like how MSI and ASUS are if their going to sell the Predator series. It's all there and ready for them to do already with an simple firmware update, it's not like they have incompetent software engineers, they just need to have better shareholder direction and they'll be on par, if not actually competitive with other brands. Just hate they think less choices/options for less issues/mistakes is better when their marketing towards consumers that utilize these things. Sorry for the rant.

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