MLB has gone from Problematic to Unworkable

[CaptainDudley]

I upgraded my system to a Rog Strix Z690-E, and the UEFI has been nothing but grief ever since. I updated it to version 2703 x64 during the build and I'm using removable SSD's as boot volumes, as I always have.
It took an extra day to assemble the upgraded computer as I spent most of that time discovering that CSM (the 'compatibility support module') is disabled when internal video is used (why?), and is needed to actually recognize those ancient, 'legacy' SSD's that no one is using anymore, now that we have M.2 and NVMe; and regardless, its default setting is OFF. Seriously? And after resolving that issue, the UEFI recognizes the physical devices while the boot device list remains blank. I discovered that on bootup, the 'detected devices' list will always see a non-bootable internal SSD that I have permanently connected, and nothing else: but if I <Cntrl><Alt><Del> during this message, the computer will reboot and THEN see all connected devices. For the last week, every time I started the computer I had to reboot it again before it was functional. Annoying but workable.

Today I changed an AURA (cosmetic) setting, and now 'detected devices' sees all my connected SSD's every time, but each one suffixed with (Under RAID controller). Why AURA would have anything to do with this I have no idea. But then the UEFI comes up on every boot, having ignored them alI as boot devices. Restoring its defaults (but enabling CSM) changes nothing. By default, my computer sees nothing to start from. I see no settings specific to using my volumes in a RAID configuration, so there's nothing to turn off. My computer no longer loads any volume, and is now a paperwieght (a large one).
What is the secret combination of EUFI settings that will make this motherboard useful in an actual working computer?

[JohnAb]

Hi Captain Dudley. Not exactly sure what your problem is, but I can see no reason why booting from removable SSD drives wouldn't work. I'm thinking that it might be something to do with your SSD partition tables. Are the drives using MBR instead of GPT? You could try converting one of those drives to GPT and then see if it is recognised on the 1st boot by the UEFI. I'm pretty sure that to boot from MBR disks, then CSM must be enabled. 

Since UEFI normally uses GPT partitions I'm thinking it's worth a try. There are several tools to do this, but you can use Dispart which is built into Windows and the process is fairly simple. Just try it on one disk first and see if it helps. The process should be safe, but I'd still back up the data first before trying. 

NOTE: Looking at your post again, I must say that I've never used RAID for boot disks, so if your disks are all part of a RAID array you might need to do some extra reading about conversion to GPT for RAID. When I wrote the above, I was thinking that you are booting from individual disks. It might be that your boot issues are somehow related to RAID and not MBR/GPT? Just something to consider. 

I think what I'd do is remove all partitions on a spare disk, do a fresh Windows install, make sure it's GPT and then see if you can boot normally. At least you'd know that the motherboard and BIOS is all good for a fresh disk. Reports on BIOS 2703 have generally been positive, so maybe that's not the issue here.  

[CaptainDudley]

Hello JohnAb. Thank you for the reply.

I'm digging deeper into the UEFI and discovering a lot of exotic functions which interact in unexpected ways. I discovered I'd set XMP to ON, and the option to reset factory defaults means that some settings are reset, not others. Turning XMP, an optimization utility for DDR4 RAM, to OFF, changed my drives from RAID volumes to normal, and I was able to boot again. What this utility would have to do with my SATA drives, or even my DDR5 RAM, remains a mystery. Just to keep the bizarre behavior going, The AURA RGB control is set to ALL ON, which of course turned all RGB it controls to OFF. I expect I'll continue to have weird performance from this UEFI, hopefully ending with the next update. Thanks for your help.

[JohnAb]

That is bizarre, I can see no reason why XMP on/off would affect RAID volumes. Sounds like you're making progress though, which is obviously good 😀