GL502VS Bios 306 = no boot with secondary SATA SSD connected?

[john_matrix]

Hello,

I have updated the BIOS of my GL502vs to the v306 and it simply cannot boot anymore.
Indeed, it's now freezing with the Republic of Gamers logo.

After some investigations, I have discovered that this is the SSD (Samsung 860 EVO) connected on the SATA port that is causing this freeze (a mechanical HDD or nothing connected cause the system to boot normally).

I have compare the logs of the v302 and the v306 BIOSes with AMIBCP and the only differences are some mentions of nvme settings).

Are some GL502vs owners in the same case?

[msilcher]

I just saw that ASUS published the 306 BIOS again with date 2019/07/16.

Has anyone tryed it already? Is it fixed?

[CRyback]

There may have been a post about a different 3.06 file. I tried that. Doesn't seem to work. Any other ideas? Struggling here and am obliged.

[CRyback]

There is a 3.06 Bios on Asus purportedly with the date of 7/16/2019, but the file itself indicates a 5/17/2019 date. It has not fixed the secondary drive issue.

[AdioNN]

Hello fellow Asusers,

So I had same problem as you are, tried to reach the support and have a story to tell you. First of all, please, if anyone have same problem not with Samsung EVO SSD, comment on this, because for now I really hope that problem is appearing only with Samsung.

Short info:
I was using GL502VS laptop, with samsung evo 970 m.2 as OS drive and evo 860 2,5 as secondary drive. It was working well (well 970 had worked with a bit lower speed, but that was to be expected). But after noticing energy leak because of too weak original asus power supply and bad optimization, I needed to upgrade my bios to v. 302. How ever the newest version and only version in their website is 306, so I chose that. After which, as you can guess, no booting were successful, even bios menu as unreachable. After I removed my secondary SSD, computer booted successfully. After some digging I find out this topic. And successfully fixed the problem as previously described in this forum thread.

Now fun facts:
I contacted to Asus support with this problem, because wanted to get 302 version of bios. What I was told was ridiculous and frustrating! I could add some screen shots, but ganna make a short version of it:
1) Several times I were told, that Asus do not support Samsung EVO SSD drives. And I should use different provider SSD
2) That adding additional SSD, voids all technical service: "we do not provide technical support and service for the hardware addition, exchange and transformation for Notebook, Desktop, and All In One production." That sounds very familiar to Apple isn't it? 😄 And all those guides how to add RAM or change HDD on Asus official web page becomes quite controversial..... Correct me if I am wrong, but this you cannot add RAM, or Hard drive without losing all means to service was already on news, and consumer won this case not one time.
3) You should not update BIOS unless it is extremely needed. And it is impossible to downgrade BIOS version and it wouldn't help you anyways. (Well last one is totally wrong)
Addition to Asus support fun facts, I contacted Samsung support about this as well, and they confirmed me, that Samsung EVO SSD should work just fine on my system. Interesting right?

Solution:
To all who have this problem, the only way I found is either use NOT Samsung EVO ssd, or downgrade you BIOS back to 302 version ( here is thread how to do it https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?11438-How-to-downgrade-your-Bios-using-Winflash). I strongly suggest contact Asus support and get legitimate version of BIOS from them, also have in mind that rerolling have some risk, similar to updating them and will destroy your warranty, be careful. But that helped me with this problem and had no negative effect.

I still would want to have newest BIOS update, but it seems I won't be able to. And it extremely frustrating when you are greeted with that kind of Asus/Apple like attitude. At least they could leave 302 bios update in their website.

[Narkanin]

Just want to chime in and say Im having the exact same problems. GL502VS with the Samsung EVO 860 as my secondary. Really sucks to hear Asus say that drive isn't support lol. What a copout. For me I ended up having to roll back windows to the previous version because I could not block it from pushing the BIOS update no matter what I did. So I guess Im just stuck on the old version of windows until who knows when or I get an entirely new SSD. However Im reluctant to do that since Ive no way of knowing if the new one will work either.*

Side note: does anyone know SSD SATA drives that will work? Transcend? Seagate? WD?*

[raju2529]

I àm using 3 disks in vivobook r542uq-dm153

[Narkanin]

I've fixed the issue. Delete ASUS Live Updater this is whats pushing the BIOS update not Windows, for some reason its being activated automatically. Once thats done remove your SATA SSD during the update anyway, I sitll had some issues updating. But once this was done I updated and it did not force me to update the BIOS as well. Hope this works for others. I am now using windows 1903 with my Samsung EVO installed in the secondary port. Windows and/or ASUS kind of suck for over lookign this.

[msilcher]

Narkanin wrote:
I've fixed the issue. Delete ASUS Live Updater this is whats pushing the BIOS update not Windows, for some reason its being activated automatically. Once thats done remove your SATA SSD during the update anyway, I sitll had some issues updating. But once this was done I updated and it did not force me to update the BIOS as well. Hope this works for others. I am now using windows 1903 with my Samsung EVO installed in the secondary port. Windows and/or ASUS kind of suck for over lookign this.

I have trouble following the line of thought of your post. Have you updated successfully to BIOS 306 and are using both (NVME & SATA) drives? You have installed W10 1903 on the SATA (Samsung EVO) and not on the NVME drive?

Thanks!

[Narkanin]

msilcher wrote:
I have trouble following the line of thought of your post. Have you updated successfully to BIOS 306 and are using both (NVME & SATA) drives? You have installed W10 1903 on the SATA (Samsung EVO) and not on the NVME drive?

Thanks!

Sorry if I wasn't clear lol, I was so tired from rebooting and rolling back and opening and closing my computer.

So I have an NVME as my boot drive and the Samsung 860 EVO SATA SSD as my secondary drive, this is the one that's causing most of the issues. I began with everything rolled back so the previous Windows version (1809? can't remember the number), and BIOS version 302. At that point I uninstalled ASUS Live Updater and removed my Samsung 860 EVO. Then I installed Windows 1903 on my boot drive and what I found was that without ASUS Live Updater installed my computer did not update to BIOS 306. Once Windows 1903 was installed I put my Samsung EVO back in and it is now running. I am still using BIOS version 302 but at least Windows isn't bugging me to update every hour. Hope that helps.

[msilcher]

Narkanin wrote:
Sorry if I wasn't clear lol, I was so tired from rebooting and rolling back and opening and closing my computer.

So I have an NVME as my boot drive and the Samsung 860 EVO SATA SSD as my secondary drive, this is the one that's causing most of the issues. I began with everything rolled back so the previous Windows version (1809? can't remember the number), and BIOS version 302. At that point I uninstalled ASUS Live Updater and removed my Samsung 860 EVO. Then I installed Windows 1903 on my boot drive and what I found was that without ASUS Live Updater installed my computer did not update to BIOS 306. Once Windows 1903 was installed I put my Samsung EVO back in and it is now running. I am still using BIOS version 302 but at least Windows isn't bugging me to update every hour. Hope that helps.

Thanks for clarifying, now I got it!!! It is almost my scenario, I stopped using ASUS updater some time ago since it contains know bugs (allow remote code execution). Also using Samsung EVO SATA as secondary drive and had to rollback from 306 to 302. In fact I'm still waiting for feedback from ASUS support team since I reported the issues with BIOS 306 as many of you. They say they are working on it and it will take some time...