XMP II / Secure Boot Violation (z790 Apex Encore)

[AlexTodd]

Anyone experienced this when trying to load XMP II from the bios. New one on me this ........

[Hopper64]

That's a new one on me too. Malware?? Wonder why XMPII would cause that?? I found this. Don't know if it will help. ?? Might want to wait on other replies.....

https://www.asus.com/support/FAQ/1042711/

[AlexTodd]

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@Hopper64 wrote:

That's a new one on me too. Malware?? Wonder why XMPII would cause that?? I found this. Don't know if it will help. ?? Might want to wait on other replies.....

https://www.asus.com/support/FAQ/1042711/

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Not malware 😄 as it only happens with XMP II , not AUTO, XMP I or Tweaked , but a bug of some kind for sure.

[Hopper64]

That is so strange. Never had that before.

[JohnAb]

I don't understand why it only happens with XMPII, odd, but my guess is that it's Secure Boot trying to protect you. The OS might have been altered by something nasty (or could just be corrupted) and the kernel files are no longer correctly signed. That's the worst case and it's what Secure Boot is supposed to do for protection anyway. 

Even if you can boot by disabling Secure Boot or turning off XMPII, take care anyway - it's possible that something nasty could ravage your files. I would backup everything regardless to be safe.  

If you already have backups, then I would try a clean install and see if that helps. 

If not, I think I would try turning off Secure Boot and then booting up a live version of Linux like Ubuntu. Use that to grab your important files and place on an external drive. Disconnect your external drive and only after that try booting back into Windows. If you get in OK, run a decent virus checker and see if it finds anything.  

Hopefully everything will be OK anyway, I'm just trying to give you advice in terms of being careful. Maybe it's nothing nasty at all, but you don't want to lose anything, that's why I'm suggesting caution. 

[LukeJoseph]

Eh I think it might be an indication of memory being unstable. I just got done testing individual sticks on individual dimm slots on my Encore, and that popped up when attempting 9200 M/T on slot A (weaker slot). 

[JohnAb]

It could be related to unstable memory, which makes sense about it only happening with XMPII, but I can't understand why that is causing a secure boot warning. Perhaps there are errors in memory during POST and that is causing the warning i.e. that memory contents are not as expected? 

Strange indeed. 

[Silent_Scone]

That would be my first assumption also.

[AlexTodd]

Thanks for everyone's replies  🙂
Plus @LukeJoseph  has also seen the same thing on the same board , so it's not just a fluke that it's happening with my setup. Never seen this type of warning before from any setup in the past. The error is flagged up by the board itself and it's not even getting to the boot stage.

[JohnAb]

Yes, I believe that is the case, that Secure Boot checks the OS before it is even allowed to boot. My understanding is that permitted OSs (like Windows) have a cryptographic key that is checked against the keys stored in the TPM chip by default. If they don't match and validate, perhaps because of corruption or tampering, then no boot. This process uses public/private key signing protocols in ways that I don't fully understand. Anyway, if memory contents are corrupted, I imagine that could interfere with secure boot sign-off.  

If secure boot is disabled, you can boot to any OS, like the many variations of Linux (signed or not), since that process does not happen. Maybe some Linux versions are signed and accepted now, not sure which ones they would be offhand, but I think the intention was to include some of the more popular releases.