Install Windows 10 on ASUS ROG g752vy

[peon2t]

HINT: Users that just want to know how to actually install Windows can jump to Section 2. In section 1 I bascially rant about how the ASUS ROG g752vy is one of the worst pieces that have ever been brought to my shop...


Section 1)

Let me say this first: I work in an IT maintenance shop and have 10+ years of professional experience in installing Windows successfully on hundreds or thousands of different devices. Some of them are ****ty but regarding Windows installation the ASUS ROG g752vy ist the single worst nightmare of a device that I have ever laid my hands on!

Now let's ignore that the boot menu is completely broken and you have to try countless times until you can select the proper UEFI boot device (the bootable USB drive only shows up in the boot menu like every 30th try, the DVD drive every 3rd try but then often it still wont boot from it after you selected it so you have to try againg and again). So we jump right to the one lucky try when you are actually able to boot into Windows Setup:

Now unfortunately the NVME SSD wont show up for installation because it's in RAID mode.

So what do we do? Easy! We try to disable RAID mode and set it to AHCI. But wait. You can't!
In the UEFI BIOS it's just locked to "RAID". How can I change it? Don't know. Different threads in this forum fantasize about how to change to AHCI but none of it works.

So what can we do else? Right... we can try to provide the proper Intel RAID driver so that we can install Windows on the device even if RAID is still enabled.

Unfortunately this ends in disaster as well because whatever RAID driver I provide the windows Setup proccess Bluescreens!
I tried about four different drivers that have been recommended and linked in this froum as well as the one that ASUS gives me for download on the driver website for the exact laptop model. All of them = Bluescreen.
I even tried an older Windows 10 version because I tought that maybe 1709 isn't compatible with those drivers. But no. It bluescreens too when providing the RAID driver on older Windows 10 versions. (Let me add that I provided RAID drivers for Windows setup several times in the past on other computers and never had such issues.)


So to sum things up:

1. You can't put this device in Non-RAID-mode
2. You can't provide RAID drivers for Windows Setup (well you can, but the Setup will crash when provided with the driver that ASUS or this Forum suggests...)


So how am I supposed to install Windows on this device?

The "guides" I have found in this forum don't really seem to help since they just don't cover the relevant parts. They just seem to assume that the drive you want to install on shows up in the windows setup which of course it doesn't.



Section 2)

Now after going trough dozens of threads here in the forums I found the crucial hint hidden somewhere at the bottom of a very long post:

You have to upgrade the BIOS first in order to be able to install Windows!

No sh*t... obviously ASUS managed it to ship this device with a BIOS that makes it impossible to install Windows..!

So you download the latest BIOS version, for example from here: https://www.asus.com/ROG-Republic-Of-Gamers/ROG-G752VY/HelpDesk_BIOS/ (link can may be different for different models. As of today the latest BIOS is 304 but informations in this forum suggest that every version starting with 213 should work.)

After you updated the BIOS (e.g. by copying it on an USB drive and then select "Start Easy Flash" from the Advanced section of the BIOS... jou should be able to figure out the rest) you can actually set the SATA mode from RAID to AHCI (again in the BIOS, you'll figure out how).

After you have set the SATA mode to AHCI your SSD will finally show up during the Windows Setup. So you can install as usual. Just that you probably will have wasted around three hours of your valuable time before finding this information 😉



FIN)

Big question remains how in the seven hells anyone could come up with the idea of shipping this device in RAID mode with not even providing the option to change to AHCI and therefore make it impossible to install an operating system on it... it's just idiotic beyond imagination and I have never seen it on any other computer model. (And I have seen a lot of computers... and a lot of them had crippled UEFI etc. But never that fatal.)

By the way: Even after updating the BIOS to the latest version the Boot Menu remains broken. So they don't really seem to bother if their devices even meet the most basic standards for personal computers...

And last but not least: Maybe you should add the information "UPDATE YOUR BIOS FIRST!" on top of the "How to install windows 8/8.1/10 The proper way" Sticky-Thread. Because nothing in this Guide works before you replaced the broken BIOS the laptop was shipped with with a newer one. Would have saved me a lot of time 😉

[Darnassus]

No love was put into the G752 series sadly.. :f

Ports should be on left side, Disk Tray should be on the right.

IPS is horrible with its glow and bleed.

The screen bezel starts to separate from the screen after numerous open and closes of the lid.

Keyboard is poorly made, makes clicky/grindy sounds at times.

Though I have to admit, the removable plastic plate on the underside of the laptop was possibly the single most intelligent thing they've thought of.. (I use mine with it off, since I'm in a hot area, makes temps go down another 5-10*C overall.


Anyhow with Windows strictly, yes, it's absolute garbage that the BIOS cannot recognise the NVMe SSD without external support (the IRST driver from USB) they should've ensured it was natively supported. Getting a format issue on the SSD is a terrible thing since you'll never fix it on this laptop, you need to have a proper PC nearby with a PCIE SSD slot to mount and clear it since the G752 can't see it half the time in the OS or BIOS etc..

[peon2t]

Darnassus wrote:

Anyhow with Windows strictly, yes, it's absolute garbage that the BIOS cannot recognise the NVMe SSD without external support (the IRST driver from USB) they should've ensured it was natively supported.

Well the problem is that I cant't even provide the IRST driver via USB (as I wrote I tried this several times with several versions) because the Windows Setup alwasy Bluescreens when I provide it with the IRST driver that ASUS gives you on the download page... (or the ones that are suggested in this forum...)
If at least this would have worked, I'd have solved the problem in a quarter of the time 😉

[Clintlgm]

peon2t wrote:
Well the problem is that I cant't even provide the IRST driver via USB (as I wrote I tried this several times with several versions) because the Windows Setup alwasy Bluescreens when I provide it with the IRST driver that ASUS gives you on the download page... (or the ones that are suggested in this forum...)
If at least this would have worked, I'd have solved the problem in a quarter of the time 😉

If you have not already backed up your eSuport folder do so now, All your hardware dirivers are in that folder as well as some software that is not available anywhere else to download.
BIOS and other drivers are located Asus Support downloads



1. to install with RST driver use the RST driver that is in your eSupport folder, if you have already trashed your eSupport folder download the correct driver from the Intel site. f6f-64.zip
Download Windows install image and create a USB Thumb drive
Create a folder on your install USV name it RST, now extract unzip however you call it that downloaded RST driver to this folder RST
Insert thumb drive in USB port
on pressing the power button to turn on the notebook spam the Esc key, that will bring up a boot menu from here select UEFI USB
The windows install will begin If you do not see your SSD as an install partition there will be a link to install a driver or something like that. Click this link and browse to the RST driver on your install USB thumb drive. Boom there will be your SSD as an install to partition. This is no different than installing the raid driver for a RAID array as far back as I can remember it may look a bit different but the function is the same.

2. To install AHCI mode you'll have to upgrade the BIOS to the latest BIOS I think from 303 on the SATA setting has the option to set to AHCI BIOS Ver is 304 so that has the option since I'm typing this to you on my G752VY with BIOS Version 304 and my windows 10 pro is installed in AHCI mode
Since your SSD has been running in RAID mode from the factory you may have to use Diskpart to Clean and convert to GPT
This is accomplished during the install
The boot up is the same

if your SSD is not Available as an Install partition
once window install starts hit the F10 + Shift key this will bring up a command prompt
Diskpart
Diskpart list disk
Select Disk your SSD should be the only drive installed regardless select your SSD
Clean
Convert GPT
exit
continue windows install on your SSD

Note: I usually on clean the SSD this leave it just as a new SSD would come from the factory and the windows install in AHCI mode will see it as an install to volume/Partition and create all the partition it needs to boot and run. Again this is as it always has been

II have installed windows 10 on this computer twice on the RST way and currently the AHCI way either time took me less than 20 minutes

Yes times have changed we now have to deal with Windows 10, UEFI and now NVME these are all new leading-edge technologies and require us to learn new ways of doing things. However, now we have boot times of 20 seconds and read speeds of 3000 MBS, on the old BIOS MBR we had 2 to 3-minute boots and were lucky to get 60 MBS Read Speeds. Settle down take your time and you'll learn this pretty quickly.

If you don't already know how to use the Diskpart tool you might want to google that part of my post I may have the commands not quite correct its common knowledge my intention was to show you the way

PS I love my G752 VY had it for 15 months not problem free. with the exception that Windows update will from time to time screw up our drivers.
I have the pro version so I have WU drivers turned off and manual install any hardware drivers myself. Once you complete your clean install you'll most likely have issues, this issue will be driver related. Install the drivers supplied in your eSupport folder these will settle out the windows 10 install and get all your hardware working again. Once all settles in then update the Nvidia driver to the latest and any other drivers from the website or from manufactures websites as long as your sure they are working on our models

[peon2t]

Thank you for your detailed reply (altough it's a bit a waste of time since I already solved the problem as I mentioned in my first post.)

Still, let me clarify some things

Clintlgm wrote:
If you have not already backed up your eSuport folder do so now, All your hardware dirivers are in that folder as well as some software that is not available anywhere else to download.

As I mentioned it's not my device, it's a device that a desperate customer brought to our shop. The harddrives were already wiped so we had no "eSupport" folder.

As a general rule I'd like to point out that every necessary driver has to be available for download. If a company does not follow this rule I can't consider it to be a serious vendor.

Clintlgm wrote:

1. to install with RST driver use the RST driver that is in your eSupport folder, if you have already trashed your eSupport folder download the correct driver from the Intel site. f6f-64.zip

I tried the Driver that ASUS provides for download as well as various dirvers form Intel that have been linked in this forum. All of them caused the Windows Setup to Bluescreen.

I don't know if the driver that you linked here finally would be the right one or if it's one of the varrious drivers that I had already tried without success. Since the problem has been solved and the Laptop returned to the customer I can't test.

However: Let's assume that your driver would be finally be the right one... why is it that on the ASUS Download page for this Laptop model the wrong driver is provided for download? Because the driver you linked here is definitely not the one that ASUS provides!

(The rest of your explanation is correct but not necessary as I am very aware of how to provide a RAID driver during WIndows Setup. Have done this a lot of times. Just normally the vendor does provide the right driver so it actually works ;-))

Clintlgm wrote:

2. To install AHCI mode you'll have to upgrade the BIOS to the latest BIOS I think from 303 on the SATA setting has the option to set to AHCI BIOS Ver is 304 so that has the option since I'm typing this to you on my G752VY with BIOS Version 304 and my windows 10 pro is installed in AHCI mode

As I have written in my first post this is exactly what I have already done and what worked.

It just took me along time to find the information that the BIOS with which the Laptop initially was shipped is so broken that you can't even install an operating system with it. Unfortunately the Sticky-Guide-Threads in this Forum don't give this crucial information right away 😉

By the way you can just skip the whole diskpart part (no pun intended) since the Windows Setup is perfectly able to partition the drives once you managed to set the laptop to AHCI mode.

Clintlgm wrote:

Yes times have changed we now have to deal with Windows 10, UEFI and now NVME these are all new leading-edge technologies and require us to learn new ways of doing things. However, now we have boot times of 20 seconds and read speeds of 3000 MBS, on the old BIOS MBR we had 2 to 3-minute boots and were lucky to get 60 MBS Read Speeds. Settle down take your time and you'll learn this pretty quickly.

Obviously you have completely misunderstood the situation!

UEFI, AHCI, RAID Drivers etc. are nothing new to me. I have done it hundreds of times and I'm doing this for years. I'm not stuck in the 90ies. It's everyday business here! There's nothing to learn here for me since I've learned all of this years ago. It's my job.

The crucial points are those two:

1. This ASUS ROG laptop is the first and only device that I have ever seen that has been shipped with such a broken UEFI/BIOS that the setting for switching SATA modes have just been forgotten.
I have seen a lot of half-baked UEFI releases that required a lot of patching. But this is the only one that has been shipped that much broken that it actually prevents the user from installing an operating system.

2. The IRST drivers that ASUS provides on the download page for this laptop are obviously the wrong ones. So you can't install the operating system if you use the drivers that they give you. It's just embarrassing!

There's nothing to whitewash here. They just don't meet the most basic standards.

[Clintlgm]

peon2t wrote:
Thank you for your detailed reply (altough it's a bit a waste of time since I already solved the problem as I mentioned in my first post.)

Still, let me clarify some things



As I mentioned it's not my device, it's a device that a desperate customer brought to our shop. The harddrives were already wiped so we had no "eSupport" folder.

As a general rule I'd like to point out that every necessary driver has to be available for download. If a company does not follow this rule I can't consider it to be a serious vendor.





I tried the Driver that ASUS provides for download as well as various dirvers form Intel that have been linked in this forum. All of them caused the Windows Setup to Bluescreen.

I don't know if the driver that you linked here finally would be the right one or if it's one of the varrious drivers that I had already tried without success. Since the problem has been solved and the Laptop returned to the customer I can't test.

However: Let's assume that your driver would be finally be the right one... why is it that on the ASUS Download page for this Laptop model the wrong driver is provided for download? Because the driver you linked here is definitely not the one that ASUS provides!

(The rest of your explanation is correct but not necessary as I am very aware of how to provide a RAID driver during WIndows Setup. Have done this a lot of times. Just normally the vendor does provide the right driver so it actually works ;-))




As I have written in my first post this is exactly what I have already done and what worked.

It just took me along time to find the information that the BIOS with which the Laptop initially was shipped is so broken that you can't even install an operating system with it. Unfortunately the Sticky-Guide-Threads in this Forum don't give this crucial information right away 😉

By the way you can just skip the whole diskpart part (no pun intended) since the Windows Setup is perfectly able to partition the drives once you managed to set the laptop to AHCI mode.




Obviously you have completely misunderstood the situation!

UEFI, AHCI, RAID Drivers etc. are nothing new to me. I have done it hundreds of times and I'm doing this for years. I'm not stuck in the 90ies. It's everyday business here! There's nothing to learn here for me since I've learned all of this years ago. It's my job.

The crucial points are those two:

1. This ASUS ROG laptop is the first and only device that I have ever seen that has been shipped with such a broken UEFI/BIOS that the setting for switching SATA modes have just been forgotten.
I have seen a lot of half-baked UEFI releases that required a lot of patching. But this is the only one that has been shipped that much broken that it actually prevents the user from installing an operating system.

2. The IRST drivers that ASUS provides on the download page for this laptop are obviously the wrong ones. So you can't install the operating system if you use the drivers that they give you. It's just embarrassing!

There's nothing to whitewash here. They just don't meet the most basic standards.

Yes NVME was quite new when Asus started producing G752 they made the decision to use the RST driver to run them, A few months later they created the AHCI setting so that the SSD would run off the Windows native NVME driver. That's the problems with Gaming computers they tend to use leading-edge technology and tweaked proprietary drivers to get things to work.

[peon2t]

Clintlgm wrote:
Yes NVME was quite new when Asus started producing G752 they made the decision to use the RST driver to run them, A few months later they created the AHCI setting so that the SSD would run off the Windows native NVME driver. That's the problems with Gaming computers they tend to use leading-edge technology and tweaked proprietary drivers to get things to work.

I'd have no problem with the fact that they use the RST driver to run the NVME device IF they would provide the user with a working RST driver 😉

However, as I already pointed out, the driver provided by ASUS causes the WIndows 10 setup to Bluescreen.

Anyway, since they wisely came to the conclusion to patch AHCI support into their BIOS the issue is resolvable without a RST driver. It's just that this information (that you have to patch the BIOS) is hard to obtain since it's not even mentioned in that Sticky-Thread in this forum that claims to explain you how to install Windows on this devices...

[Michael_Berg]

Since both of you seem to know what you're doing, do you know where the keyboard drivers are located? Are they a part of the ATK package fully? Maybe you've read my post.

[Clintlgm]

Michael.Berg wrote:
Since both of you seem to know what you're doing, do you know where the keyboard drivers are located? Are they a part of the ATK package fully? Maybe you've read my post.

I have read your post and I have no idea what your problem might be. Sleep and quick load windows/Hybrid shutdown can cause unusual problems of drivers not restarting, though I don't remember anyone with your particular problem. If you haven't already turned off fast boot in your BIOS. In windows, if you can get in go to power options/Advanced/Sleep turn off Hybrid shutdown I set my sleep to 5000 minutes.
Another thought is will an external keyboard work?
You could install the latest chipset info files
you could download the latest Windows 10 Iso using the MCT, and run an in-place upgrade saving your files with the ISO on your desktop run the setup.exe from within windows. You might have to reinstall some software but for me when I do this most programs run an auto-update and fix themselves
are you running the latest BIOS?

[JustinThyme]

For OP, is the BIOS current?*
The initial roll out was buggy but after that no issues whatsoever running raid or AHCI. *Long post for an easy problem that’s been addressed many times and can be found with a little time and the use of that funny looking tool in the top right that looms like a magnifying glass.*