Why does my computer not boot into windows on the first boot?

Alex52Microcenter

@PowerSpec_MikeW Ah ok. Strange because I don’t recall it usually doing that. Also the power supply has arrived, any tips for swapping it out? Do you think I will have to take out any components other that the current PSU to do so? Will the cables be basically the same orientation? Do I have to use the new power cable?

PowerSpec_MikeW

@Alex52Microcenter

Shouldn't need to remove anything else. The panels pop off. Take the sides and top off for access. The power supply screws into a mount on the top. You'll need to break some zip ties, but that's about it.

Alex52Microcenter

@PowerSpec_MikeW Unfortunately the new PSU did not solve the problem, occasionally the computer won't boot up, and I suspect it would get bad again like before. I am going to return the new PSU and replace with the old one because it did not solve the problem and won't bring any benefit otherwise. While I was at it, I scanned my ram with 3 extended runs of windows memory diagnostic and it didn't pick up on anything. Back to square one... any other ideas? Thanks for your patience btw, the issue is getting real annoying.

PowerSpec_MikeW

@Alex52Microcenter

Well, at least we've ruled out that component. We seem to have ruled out RAM. It's unlikely RAM's going to cause a no POST and not give you a debug flash on the power LED. When the computer hangs on startup, have you ever checked to see if the num/caps lock respond?

Alex52Microcenter

@PowerSpec_MikeW Do you mean the light indicators on the keyboard that shows when number keys and caps lock are toggled? I haven’t payed attention to them. If they are related what should I notice about them? I’m not home right now but can check later.

PowerSpec_MikeW

@Alex52Microcenter

If they respond, the system is running you're just not getting any video. It acts like a no POST, but worth verifying. I'd assume that they won't respond, but lets be sure. When I saw 'respond' you'll be able to tap it and watch the LED's on the keyboard toggle off and on.

Alex52Microcenter

@PowerSpec_MikeW Just swapped the PSU back and tested this. I restarted the pc multiple times to try to get the issue to come up, but luckily (or I guess unluckily in this case) it wouldn't. I know of a way that gets the issue to come up 100% of the time, and that is to reboot into the uefi from windows using a cmd prompt (C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /k shutdown /r /fw). So Issue came up, tested caps and num lock, and they wouldnt work. I Shut computer down and continued boot into uefi (im guessing this also shows its stopping before POST sinse the next thing in the process was still to boot into uefi) and tested caps and num lock to make sure it wasnt that they just dont work in uefi and I just wasnt getting video, but no, they work in uefi, so it does appear to no POST, as the caps and num lock keys dont work when the issue comes up. With this in mind, got any other ideas or things to test?

PowerSpec_MikeW

@Alex52Microcenter

It's a pretty strange issue. When I mentioned a cold boot issue originally, let me explain what that means. If a PC intermittently hangs when restarting, we'll call that a warm boot issue. If it intermittently hangs after being shutdown for a while, cold boot issue. You seem to intermittently have both. So lets go over what we've done. Ruled out the power supply definitively by swapping it. You just confirmed it's hung up, it's not POSTing, that rules out a display output issue. So the GPU is alright. Drive is unlikely to cause a hang. More likely than a SATA drive being PCIe, but lets discount that for now.

Editing, we cover fast boot. Memory isn't likely to cause an issue like this with no stability issues. Do you have an old SATA drive, either SSD or HDD we could test with?

Alex52Microcenter

@PowerSpec_MikeW I have the base 500gb blue drive that the computer comes with, os on this drive, and is connected via pcie on the Mb because it’s m.2. I have a 1tb m.2 also connected to the MB via pcie like the first one, in the slot below the gpu. In fact, I believe I made a forum asking about this a while back which you helped me on. I then have 2 portable external 1tb drive connected via the usb3 ports on the Mb io. No sata connected drives. I could be wrong about the types of connections with the 2 m.2 drives, so I can send photos of everything when I get home if you would like. I’m guessing you would like me to start by ejecting and removing the 2 portable drives and testing for the issue? Also, a while back I’ve noticed that wake on lan has stopped working entirely, do you think this is related?

Edit: On my account you can see the forum I made of which you suggested I do for the m.2 drive. That is what I did. Also, I think I understood your question wrong, I don’t believe I have any sata drives, but can look later, and could be able to buy one if needed

PowerSpec_MikeW

@Alex52Microcenter

That's a decent amount of drives. Yes, going to just the main C drive and testing for the issue would be a good step. If you can't replicate it, add back one drive at a time.

Alex52Microcenter

@PowerSpec_MikeW Ok, so a lot is happening so I’m going to write my response as I see what is happening. First before taking the drives out I booted up my computer to eject the 2 external drives if I could. But I boot up to windows boot manager (image attached). Though it seems like nothing bad happened and somehow it just didn’t want to boot into the os automatically (do you think that could be part of the problem?) so I just entered into windows.

Couldn’t eject the drives anyways because they were in use. So I shutdown and turn off power as I take out the 1tb m.2 and 2 portable drives, but leave the os drive obviously. Boot back up with just os drive and restart into uefi to test, and the problem didn’t occur. Boot into windows from uefi and try again to make sure it wasn’t somehow a reverse fluke where I just got lucky. Reboot into uefi again. But this time boot issue comes back. I shutdown and boot again to continue boot into uefi process, but I thought it regressed to when it got really bad because it refused to continue the boot as the issue kept coming back a few times even after shutdown and presumed it won’t continue into uefi until I unplug the power while running (remember that the problem used to happen and I would hold power button to shut down pc and it would boot like normal, then it got to be real bad when I couldn’t even fix it unless I unplug power while pc is on with boot issue. Then it turned back into I was able to fix it by powering off and powering on again) Now, even after unplugging when the power is on, it won’t boot. It seems nothing will continue it’s boot. Jesus, and to think this problem couldn’t get more complex. To summarize: I’m guessing it booting normally into uefi with only os drive was just extreme luck somehow because I don’t think it was the problem as when I went to try to boot into uefi again it stopped booting up normally entirely (bruh). Anyways, I’m going to reread this entire forum because with all that has happened so far as it’s hard to keep track how the boot issue has changed across the months and I’ve probably forgotten a few things, I suggest you do to. Thanks again for helping me through the issue, as it’s probably getting annoying for you too. So what are your thoughts now that it’s not even booting? Should I try to reattach the drives to see if that fixes it? Thanks

PowerSpec_MikeW

@Alex52Microcenter

Yes, lets try reconnecting the drives to just get it back up. Is it possible to take the OS drive out of the equation? Can we wipe and install an OS on another drive and test?

Alex52Microcenter

@PowerSpec_MikeW I will reconnect the drives to see if that works. Using a completely different os and install would be a last resort as I can’t wipe my current drives because I have a lot of things and work on them. Meaning I would have to either get a new ssd and install windows on it. Or, I don’t know if this would be possible, but I have an old acer laptop (swift 3 I think) with an atlas modified windows install. Do you think if we got to that point that I could take out the drive in the laptop and use it on the pc to see if it’s a hardware issue?

PowerSpec_MikeW

@Alex52Microcenter

You can try that, it's possible it'll crash loading into the OS.

Alex52Microcenter

@PowerSpec_MikeW Reattaching the drives to the pc did not solve the problem. Would I be able to take my pc in to microcenter in Madison Heights so that they would be able to swap out things until they figure out whether it’s hardware or software? I think this would be easier than tearing down my laptop if this were an option.

PowerSpec_MikeW

@Alex52Microcenter

Yes, we offer diagnostic services and would be able to diagnose it. Since you've discovered an easy way to replicate it, it should be relatively easy. However, keep in mind we're pretty much down to drive, board, CPU.

Alex52Microcenter

@PowerSpec_MikeW Got the pc to microcenter today, estimated wait is 5 days. There were 2 red flags for me though. First is that they said they can’t look at the forums? I wanted to give a guy the link to this forum because there would be a lot of helpful background information in this, given how complex the problem is, but he said they somehow don’t have access to it, which confuses me. Second is that they apparently don’t temporarily swap parts and hardware, which would have been really helpful to pinpoint what hardware is causing the problem, if it were to end up being a hardware issue. Both of these seem strange, given I don’t see what would be stopping them from doing these. I am also worried that they will miss something or return it to me without it actually being fixed given they don’t have the full context of the problem and that it can come back after seemingly going away. What are your thoughts on this? I’ll keep you updated on what they message me.

PowerSpec_MikeW

@Alex52Microcenter

If they're able to replicate the problem with the shutdown /r /fw command they're going to have to swap components out to see if the problem is resolved. It's process of elimination. Lets give the assigned technician a chance to dig into and see if they can replicate the issue. Let me know what you hear back.

Alex52Microcenter

@PowerSpec_MikeW I’ve got a text from the repair guys saying that they have found that the uefi bios is corrupt and that is what the issue is, which makes sense as booting into it always caused the issue. Would I be able to reflash the uefi or do I have to replace the MB?

PowerSpec_MikeW

@Alex52Microcenter

I don't think it's likely that a corrupt BIOS would result in a random issue like this. But you can reflash the BIOS over itself. We can offer an updated BIOS for the board to test as well.

Alex52Microcenter

@PowerSpec_MikeW Why wouldn’t it? To me it makes sense because the computers turning on but it’s not booting properly and the boot is dependent on uefi bios working. How would I reflash the bios over itself? Would I want to use an updated bios? If the steps to reflash are super involved, would I be able to have the repair guys reflash? Why did they only say they should swap MB? Could a reflash if cause me to lose data? What caused the uefi to corrupt if it were the problem? Thanks.

PowerSpec_MikeW

@Alex52Microcenter

I would expect a corrupt BIOS to be pretty consistent. As in it wouldn't POST at all ever, instead of presenting as a warm boot issue. Could be some CMOS corruption, but it's unlikely anything would get by the checksum and you could fix that by clearing CMOS. That storage is volatile. My thought is that the board is really the problem. You're initial issue that was solved with the CMOS battery replacement was just another symptom. This is the latest symptom we're seeing as the board degrades further. Now, flashing a BIOS is possible, and it's something easy to test.

You can have service flash it. Process is basically you put the .cap file on a flash drive and plug it into the system. Go Tools - ASUS EZ Flash Utility - Select cap file - confirm, and you wait about 3 minutes. It'll reboot when it's done. You may get an error because it's a new BIOS. Just F1 for setup, go over to Exit. Load your defaults, save and exit. You'll load back to the OS without any issue.

Alex52Microcenter

@PowerSpec_MikeW They have swapped the MB and it seems to have fixed the issue. Do you think this problem could arise again because it is the same MB?

PowerSpec_MikeW

@Alex52Microcenter

Not likely, we've used that motherboard on several models and the failure rate is extremely low. I think the board had issues early on that that gradually worsened overtime, based on the previous issue you had that required a CMOS battery replacement.

Alex52Microcenter

@PowerSpec_MikeW Ok, thanks for your help with the issue!