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Can only boot into windows if I go through bios and press f10 with no change

Gkore
Level 8

Hi all,

 

I'm on Asus Z690-A, win11 23h2, everything is up to date with latest drivers and bios (3802), gpt drive.

When I boot, if I don't do anything, I get BSOD inaccessible boot device.

If I press del, go into bios, CHANGE NOTHING, press f10 (restarts), then I get into windows normally.

 

I've tried playing with secure boot on and off (windows\other os), keys (stardard\custom), VMD, CSM, fast boot, repair windows with tool... nothing is consistent except for just going into bios and pressing f10 (well except for CSM enable which doesn't work at all).

I have the BCD in a dedicated EFI partition on the same disk as windows, as the first partition in the disk.

 

This is driving me crazy, and nothing I've tried so far works (downgrade bios, try to rebuild bcd, create new efi partition...)

I want to avoid a complete re-install.

 

Any idea would be welcome.

 

Thanks.

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16 REPLIES 16

JohnAb
Level 17

OK, one thing at a time is best. A BSOD is often (but not always) associated with unstable RAM. Run some tests (MemTest86 might be available in your BIOS) and see what results you get. If that's OK, run some different RAM tests to be sure.

If they fail, there are things you can try to get the RAM stable, there are many posts here about RAM stability. Also try resetting to BIOS defaults and just see if that makes things stable.

If they all pass, report back and we'll have another think. By that stage it might be the drive, but if it boots sometimes, my money is on RAM stability. A Windows re-install might help, but test the RAM first. Good luck. 

 

Z690 Hero, 12900K, BIOS 4001, MEI 2433.6.3.0, ME Firmware 16.1.32.2473, 7000X Case, RM1000x PSU, ASUS TUF OC 3090TI, 2 x 16GB Corsair RAM @ 5200MHz, Windows 11 Pro 23H2, Corsair H150i Elite AIO, 4x Corsair RGB fans, 3x M.2 NVME drives, 2x SATA SSDs, 2x SATA HDs.

Thanks for the reply!

I did run MemTest86 through bios and it passed, I've also tried lowering the speed to 4000mhz, increasing voltage to 1.38 and memory controller voltage to 1.25 - nothing helped.

Gave up and re-installed windows from scratch (accepting to use backup after the clean install), same issue... 

Tried 4 different bios versions, all the same.

TestMem5 on Intel DDR5 preset ongoing right now with no errors yet.

One weird thing I notice is that a different SATA SSD is marked as disk 0 all the time, while the disk with efi and windows is disk 1, not sure if it has anything to do with the issue.

To clarify, it ALWAYS boots if I just press del after a cold boot, get into bios, change nothing and press f10... goes to windows with no issues every single time.

But if I don't go through bios first... it hangs in the windows loading circle until I get the bsod.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

That's odd. Just an idea, try looking at the partition structure of the non OS drive. Could there be a boot sector there, which means the system chooses that disk and can't find any OS? I'm really not sure why it always boots after accessing the BIOS. If you go into the BIOS to select your boot disk, do you see only one available entry? If you do, check that it is selected as the boot disk. If there are two entries, perhaps that's the problem, but I'm not sure what's happening. Windows should search for a bootable disk anyway, so the other thing I'm wondering is whether that disk is slow to initialise, meaning that it finds the other drive first and then seeing it is non-bootable, goes into the BIOS.  But normally, I think it would say 'no OS found', press F1 to continue or something similar.

What happens if you remove the non OS disk, does it boot normally then? 

Z690 Hero, 12900K, BIOS 4001, MEI 2433.6.3.0, ME Firmware 16.1.32.2473, 7000X Case, RM1000x PSU, ASUS TUF OC 3090TI, 2 x 16GB Corsair RAM @ 5200MHz, Windows 11 Pro 23H2, Corsair H150i Elite AIO, 4x Corsair RGB fans, 3x M.2 NVME drives, 2x SATA SSDs, 2x SATA HDs.

Thanks for the reply!

All other drives have only regular partitions, all gpt.

I did originally had the os on one of them but moved to the primary one with EFI partition, changed the bcd, and removed the old partitions from the 2nd drive.

In the bios I only have 1 os which is on the main disk, I've also tried removing the older SSD but everything behaved the same.

I did find out that there might be an issue with the main SSD, as you've said, something like a warm-up or so.. which is weird

I've checked speeds via crystalmark and saw the write speed are terrible (like... 1-20MB/s) but after 3-4 runs and a restart... all of a sudden they are 4-6GB/s which makes more sense.

I can't really explain it... maybe those are signs the main SSD is dying, though it's only 2y old NVME so I find it hard... unless the heat is killing it (it's between a 2080 and a Noctua D15, but I've also checked temps and they are about 55c, not an issue for SSD afaik.

Anyhow, current workaround was to enable windows fastboot, which doesn't actually completely shuts down, and no I can get into windows every time after a "cold" boot.

Not a proper solution but something to go on with until I figure it out.

Any more suggestions? 

Some progress perhaps, that's good although I'm running out of ideas. Try running CrysalDiskInfo. It's free and will show you drive health and temperature, plus other information. Health probably won't be 100% but I'd expect it to be better than around 95%. My OS SSD must be about 2 years old and that is currently at 96%.

Also make sure that the drive firmware is up to date. 

One other thing, have you tried a total power off at the PSU for a few minutes? There have been cases where doing that can solve very strange issues. 

Z690 Hero, 12900K, BIOS 4001, MEI 2433.6.3.0, ME Firmware 16.1.32.2473, 7000X Case, RM1000x PSU, ASUS TUF OC 3090TI, 2 x 16GB Corsair RAM @ 5200MHz, Windows 11 Pro 23H2, Corsair H150i Elite AIO, 4x Corsair RGB fans, 3x M.2 NVME drives, 2x SATA SSDs, 2x SATA HDs.

It's a teamgroup SSD and they have a very minimal sw, health was 94%, temp 55c, speeds were mixed, as said above, but finally stabilized... maybe this writing "stress test" helped? No idea... 

FW seems to be latest, not super clear in that tool from teamgroup or the website.

I did shut the PSU for about a minute or so, but that was still with the windows fastboot, so as I see it, as long as the shutdown was done properly (and not power cutoff), it should be ok, which is a good enough workaround I guess.

I'm too afraid now to disable it and check, so that it won't jinx this workaround lol.

OK, as long as there was a complete power off, that should be enough. I'm not sure why it can help sometimes, maybe the BIOS can get into a strange state, but sometimes it seems to work. 94% seems OK for the age. Not too bad. Not sure what else to suggest, but a workaround is good enough. Hope you get to the bottom of it eventually 👍

Z690 Hero, 12900K, BIOS 4001, MEI 2433.6.3.0, ME Firmware 16.1.32.2473, 7000X Case, RM1000x PSU, ASUS TUF OC 3090TI, 2 x 16GB Corsair RAM @ 5200MHz, Windows 11 Pro 23H2, Corsair H150i Elite AIO, 4x Corsair RGB fans, 3x M.2 NVME drives, 2x SATA SSDs, 2x SATA HDs.

Yes, complete shutoff as long as it's coming from a proper shutdown command, didn't try a power cutoff but that's a corner case I'm willing to accept.

Bonus of keeping fastboot on is to actually have faster boots!

Thanks for the support, hoping this workaround will hold well as it's pretty much "invisible" 🙂

Hi @Gkore which M.2 slot is your OS Drive installed into? Is it M.2_1 or some other slot?

One weird thing I notice is that a different SATA SSD is marked as disk 0 all the time, while the disk with efi and windows is disk 1, not sure if it has anything to do with the issue.

This makes me think that your OS Drive is in M.2_2  slot. Is that correct? Have you tried using your M.2_1 slot or in other words your DISK 0 as your OS Drive?

Disclaimer: I am not an ASUS support person so my information may be incomplete. Always follow official documentation and material provided by ASUS representatives.

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