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R6E BIOS, Boot Override, and missing IRST OptionROM Splash 1803

virgil990
Level 7
Hello Everyone, long time listener, first time caller. My love/hate relationship with my R6E has entered a new phase as of late. Most things were working quite well, no ram issues, OC issues or any of the others a lot of people seem to struggle with, so in a way I feel truly blessed;)

My issues, or at least any of the major one’s, started with the Win 10 April 1803 Update, I know, I know. They kind of sneak these in on you and I guess I should have done more research on how major this update was (very similar to a Win 8.1 update.) The upgrade process itself was kind of a mess, would fail over and over through Windows Update. Had to use the “Windows Update Assistant” tool and after successfully installing found that I had a second boot manager partition created which I somehow assumed was at the root of my problems.

The first thing I noticed was that my IRST OptionROM splash during POST was missing. Not a major deal but seems intimately connected to the other issues. I started noticing performance issues while testing my new Vive Pro so I decided to go back to one of my pre-1803 True Image backups and found I couldn’t boot into the WinPE USB environment I use to restore. Boot Override seems to be completely broken, unable to boot into any of my USB environments and will even show an entirely empty list requiring a CMOS clear. This prevents me from accessing the Linux GRUB and booting into my Ubuntu Server dual boot. I did flash 1401 at the same time as the 1803 upgrade but I’m not sure which is the real culprit. I was able to finally get back to a previous backup but the issues seem to remain and now I’m completely unable to restore at all as Boot Override seems to be completely broken and even the USB BIOS Flashback is not working.

I’m a HUGE fan of backups, I have numerous sequential backups of my many complex environments and any time I run into trouble I’m less than 15 min away from a pristine environment. I guess that’s why I feel so lost now. I’ve never been locked in like this and it is completely unnerving. At this point it seems to me that I have some sort of a hardware or microcode issue but I’m completely unable to solve it. Thought I would reach out to you guys before starting the RMA process which I’ve heard can be a bit of a nightmare. This has to be the 6th Asus build I’ve done and I’ve never had a single RMA. Any help is infinitely appreciated.

TLDR Upgraded to 1401 and Win 10 1803 now I’m locked in a persistently decaying BIOS/OS environment I can’t seem to escape from.
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4 REPLIES 4

tipes
Level 10
virgil990 wrote:
Hello Everyone, long time listener, first time caller. My love/hate relationship with my R6E has entered a new phase as of late. Most things were working quite well, no ram issues, OC issues or any of the others a lot of people seem to struggle with, so in a way I feel truly blessed;)

My issues, or at least any of the major one’s, started with the Win 10 April 1803 Update, I know, I know. They kind of sneak these in on you and I guess I should have done more research on how major this update was (very similar to a Win 8.1 update.) The upgrade process itself was kind of a mess, would fail over and over through Windows Update. Had to use the “Upgrade Assistant” tool and after successfully installing found that I had a second boot manager partition created which I somehow assumed was at the root of my problems.

The first thing I noticed was that my IRST OptionROM splash during POST was missing. Not a major deal but seems intimately connected to the other issues. I started noticing performance issues while testing my new Vive Pro so I decided to go back to one of my pre-1803 True Image backups and found I couldn’t boot into the WinPE USB environment I use to restore. Boot Override seems to be completely broken, unable to boot into any of my USB environments and will even show an entirely empty list requiring a CMOS clear. This prevents me from accessing the Linux GRUB and booting into my Ubuntu Server dual boot. I did flash 1401 at the same time as the 1803 upgrade but I’m not sure which is the real culprit. I was able to finally get back to a previous backup but the issues seem to remain and now I’m completely unable to restore at all as Boot Override seems to be completely broken and even the USB BIOS Flashback is not working.

I’m a HUGE fan of backups, I have numerous sequential backups of my many complex environments and any time I run into trouble I’m less than 15 min away from a prestine environment. I guess that’s why I feel so lost now. I’ve never been locked in like this and it is completely unnerving. At this point it seems to me that I have some sort of a hardware or microcode issue but I’m completely unable to solve it. Thought I would reach out to you guys before starting the RMA process which I’ve heard can be a bit of a nightmare. This has to be the 6th Asus build I’ve done and I’ve never had a single RMA. Any help is infinitely appreciated.

TLDR Upgraded to 1401 and Win 10 1803 now I’m locked in a persistently decaying BIOS/OS environment I can’t seem to escape from.


Hi,

Just a thought - have you tried using the other bios, and see if that resolves your issues? Switch, and see how you go. I feel your pain though.

Mark

tipes wrote:
Hi,

Just a thought - have you tried using the other bios, and see if that resolves your issues? Switch, and see how you go. I feel your pain though.

Mark


Hi Mark,

Thanks for responding! Yeah, I guess that's what I'll have to do. I think I was just afraid of corrupting two BIOS rather than just a single but at this point I probably don't have any options.

It just feels like a hardware issue to me for some reason... I think I'll pull out all of my PCIE cards and USB devices before trying BIOS2 and see if that makes any difference. I've had a lot of USB issues with this board, with strange side effects (USB devices disappearing, VR HMD jitter, issues with installing Windows from USB with Asus Driver USB installed, etc.) I also remember having an issue with one of the NICs because of my RAM XMP overclock. These types of issues are solved with a lot of brutal often illogical trial and error. I think that's what I'm reaching out to your community here for, to see if anyone knows any of these little tricks relating to this board that can help me avoid this trial and error process.

I agree with you 100% though, if I can't brute force a hardware fix I'll definitely try BIOS2. Will do more testing and report back. Thanks again.

Daniel

G75rog
Level 10
Revert back to 1201 or 1301 for the bios issues and build 1703 to get rid of the 1803 mess.

Bios 1401 did mess up the Flashback utility on my Apex but, I can live with it.

My Win7 upgrade to Win 10 1703 has a quirk that makes the update to 1803 fail every time so I have a permanent 1703 that runs fine for now.

G75rog wrote:
Revert back to 1201 or 1301 for the bios issues and build 1703 to get rid of the 1803 mess.

Bios 1401 did mess up the Flashback utility on my Apex but, I can live with it.

My Win7 upgrade to Win 10 1703 has a quirk that makes the update to 1803 fail every time so I have a permanent 1703 that runs fine for now.


Hi G75rog,

Thanks for the tips! I went back to 1301 with no change in my issue, I guess I should try 1201 as well. The issue I'm having now is preventing me from reverting to any previous OSes though as I cannot use Boot Override or change my boot order. I would like to boot to a Linux USB environment and use GPARTED to wipe my OS drive, forcing the system to boot to my install media. At the moment though I can't boot to anything but my Windows Partition.

I had similar issues as you with the 1803 update. I can't honestly suggest you upgrade with all the trouble I've had but after numerous fails through Windows Update I found that the "Windows Update Assistant 1803" (a program you can download) worked every time.

I'll keep going back to previous BIOS to see if any work. The ideal would be to get a BIOS that allows me to reorder my boot order or use boot override in which case I have pristine backups of my entire system from 1803 through 1703 all the way to a fresh install. At the moment I am "landlocked" however.

Thanks a lot for your tips! I will definitely try prior BIOS versions and when I get back to 1703 I'll stay there for the time being. Will test and report back.