Boot Issues with Z590E, Windows 10 or 11 or UEFI and Secure Boot, Monitor with no signal/black.

[nanatotempole]

Recently got a new computer built. It was working great. But I wanted to upgrade to win 11 while using my old SSD. After converting the SSD to GPT (GUID) instead of MBR partitioning, I ran into the following issues.

1. After sleep or shut down the computer would no longer be able to boot.

2. Finagling with CSM, Legacy vs UEFI, did not work.

3. Disabling Fastboot made this a nightmare because it's difficult to force the BIOS. (Actually, just need to hold down F2 when you power it up until you see the BIOS but you do stare at a black screen for a while) (and make sure your HDMI or DVI cable plugged into the graphics card instead of the motherboard.)

4. 'fixing' the issue using win 10 troubleshooting did not work.

Eventually after many shenanigans, I would end up with the Republic of Gaming BIOS giving me a specific CPU Fan Error. Well, I had liquid cooling so yeah of course there's an error. There's no fan to monitor. The error message encouraged me to disable the CPU fan monitoring in the Bios. However, when I first had it before attempting to convert my SSD from MBR to GPT/GUID, it was working fine w/ this error. So I hadn't paid it any heed, but it was actually my problem. After installing WIndows 11, Win 11 just would not boot. Without Fast Boot, it would just go to the error message than the BIOS. With Fast boot you just get a black screen and you cry, because unless you know your monitors, cables, SSD, everything is working fine you have a lot to troubleshoot through.

Solution: Force boot into BIOS, disable fastboot just in case. GO to Monitor --> CPU configuration --> Set the CPU Fan Speed to IGNORE. Then Windows 11 will actually start. Without fastbook it may take a minute, but it worked and now i'm not crying. I write this post so that people may find it in their google searches.

My relevant swag:

ROG STRIX Z590-E GAMING WIFI Motherboard

Intel i9 11900k

NVIDIA 3090 graphics card

Windows 11 from USB

Liquid Cooling System.

[Saltgrass]

You are going to have to explain exactly how the OLD SSD fits into this situation.  Is it just the same one you used of the prior system.

Right now, it sounds like you bought a new system and moved the old drive to the new system.  That booted fine by you wanted to upgrade to Windows 11 and you old system was a Legacy Install.

So, you used the MBR2GPT utility to convert the old drive to UEFI which does require a GPT configuration.  

When you boot into UEFI, you need to boot to the Windows Boot Manager, which should be the default boot device in the Bios.  The CSM should be disabled.  You also have a choice of Windows UEFI or Other OS so do not use the Other OS.

Do you know how Diskpart works and could you get us a copy of the readouts for the partitions on that drive?

Is this the only drive in the system?

The CPU fan Speed situation is probably caused by not connecting the USB power connection for the AIO cooler.

[nanatotempole]

I did both. First I used an old SSD form my old system and everything worked fine. Attempting to upgrade to Win 11 caused me issues.

With Old: had Win 10. Had "cpu error set to ignore" message, but win 10 booted fine. Used Diskpart to convert the old SSD to GUID. Successfully Installed Win 10, but every time I turned off the computer or put it to sleep, it would not boot into windows. I was able to reinstall everything. I was at this point also unable to upgrade to Win 11. I tried doing the diskpart again and converting it to GPT. Note, I may have failed at the diskpart once or twice. It's a bit of a blur now.  Finagling w/ Legacy/CSM did cause me issue, but I'm glossing over that.  Anyhoo his was a huge mess.

So, I bought a new SSD at larger size. Old SSD was over 4 years old, and at the time had suspected I had bortked by old SSD as it was old anyways. 

With new SSD: Did a Win 11 fresh install via USB.  SSD Successfully set up as GPT with fresh install. CSM was disabled and could not be enabled. Still could not boot into Windows and instead got stuck at the RoG error screen w/ the CPU. Finally, I toggled that to 'ignore' in the BIOS and that worked.  

To answer your questions directly:

There were no other drives in the system.

I never used "Other OS". I did not know I could copy readouts. But, bit moot now.

"The CPU fan speed situation is probably caused by not connecting' I guess so. I don't recall seeing a USB power connector.  But this issue was not google-able for me in the past, and so I'm writing this for some schmuck that runs into my issue in the future. 

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@Saltgrass wrote:

You are going to have to explain exactly how the OLD SSD fits into this situation.  Is it just the same one you used of the prior system.

When you boot into UEFI, you need to boot to the Windows Boot Manager, which should be the default boot device in the Bios.  The CSM should be disabled.  You also have a choice of Windows UEFI or Other OS so do not use the Other OS.

Do you know how Diskpart works and could you get us a copy of the readouts for the partitions on that drive?

Is this the only drive in the system?

The CPU fan Speed situation is probably caused by not connecting the USB power connection for the AIO cooler.

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[Saltgrass]

The USB connection for the AIO cooler is not a guess.  Check your connections, you could be damaging your processor.

When you do a Windows 11 Clean install, you boot to the cleaned drive and select the UEFI version of the install medial.  It will configure the drive for you, so you do not need to do anything regarding its configuration.

During the install, at the select unallocated space page, make sure it creates 4 partitions in that open space.