IT Experts? BIOS issue...

[Bibs]

I've got some new Corsair Vengance RAM which was installed into my office PC recently. I was working on some video and read that changing it to XMP mode in the BIOS would speed it up considerably and was under the impression this would be an easy win. 

Yesterday, I changed the BIOS and the PC wouldn't even boot into the BIOS flash screen. Having looked at way's around this, I removed the CMOS battery and reset the BIOS but now it won't boot into Windows, it says that the drive isn't recognised as a boot drive. 

The BIOS can see all 3 drives, I've run some partition software which found a lost boot partition and reassigned that but still no luck. I can't reinstall W11 from installation media onto any disk, it gets far enough to reboot and then trips over. The main drive is a Samsung 1TB SSD which is only a few months old so I'd be surprised if it's failed already. 

Any ideas?

[ChrisJ]

AMD or Intel? AMD has had issues with RAM compatibility in the past (I think recent chips/mb have been better)

Motherboard make/model?

RAM speed?

How was your boot drive setup - single or raid?

[KennyN]

I have seen XMP mode damage a motherboard before, hopefully that's not the issue in this case!  XMP basically overclocks the RAM, which can lead to stability and compatibility issues.  Are you 100% on the combination of components and speeds being compatible?

[hamza]

Sounds like you're managing to get into a windows installer so XMP / RAM issues are unlikely as its at least stable enough to boot into an installation OS.

You can double check this using any Linux distro and just booting into that from the USB (no install needed). I typically use Linux Mint for this.

Assuming that works fine (and I suspect it will) the issue is either with the drive, or quite possibly just with the BIOS and what is getting setup as the boot drive and or the bootloader itself.  

When you reinstalled Windows did you point it to a partition on the drive? or the whole drive? that will affect how the windows installer sets up the bootloader (or doesn't) which sounds like is what is causing your issues.

[Bibs]

@ChrisJ

It's a Gigabyte H110M-S2H with I7 7700k, 32gb of Corsair Vengance RAM which I think is DDR4 3300? Single disc boot, no RAID. 

@hamza & @KennyN

I've got Ubuntu running on an external SSD and did the RAM test as I thought I could have popped it but it ran through ok (took 2 hours!). I've also got 16gb of Kingston RAM and popped that it an no difference so I'm thinking something on the motherboard has gone. It's a custom build so I'm thinking the BIOS wasn't vanilla and despite trying every combination of settings I can think of changing it's still asking for a boot drive after the BIOS flash screen.  

It's reinstalled Windows 11 Pro onto the original SSD (Samsung 870 EVO 1tb) and also my storage HDD ok but trips over when it reboots. 

I've got desperate so taken the opportunity to upgrade and am having a switch to AMD with a Ryzen A9 5950x with 16 cores which should embarrass the i7 suitably and a new motherboard but I've lost 2 days of video editing time which is a pain as I'm on a deadline hence the urgency. I can't edit 75gb of 4k video on my Surface laptop, it's just not heavyweight enough to do it.  

Thanks for your input. I'm lost that I can't fix it as I'm usually all over this kind of thing which makes me think it's a physical issue, it happened as soon as I rebooted after switching to try XMP. 

[ChrisJ]

Motherboard only supports up to DDR4 2133 RAM - H110M-S2H_20150909.xls (gigabyte.com)

Although I'd have thought that it would just drop down to the lower speed not bork the m/b

Have you tried re-flashing the BIOS?

I don't suppose it is the security stuff that came as a requirement for Windows 11 being corrupted/turned off, might be worth trying to install Windows 10 onto it?

[Bibs]

That could be the issue then. I've had the RAM for a few weeks and it's been fine but 'overclocking' it may have done the mboard an injury! 

New one is:

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/B550-AORUS-ELITE-V2-rev-10/sp#sp

and I've just ordered a Gen4 NVME for it too which should all help. Didn't expect to being having a spend up this week! 

[Dan E]

6 hours ago, Bibs said:

I've got some new Corsair Vengance RAM which was installed into my office PC recently. I was working on some video and read that changing it to XMP mode in the BIOS would speed it up considerably and was under the impression this would be an easy win. 

Yesterday, I changed the BIOS and the PC wouldn't even boot into the BIOS flash screen. Having looked at way's around this, I removed the CMOS battery and reset the BIOS but now it won't boot into Windows, it says that the drive isn't recognised as a boot drive. 

The BIOS can see all 3 drives, I've run some partition software which found a lost boot partition and reassigned that but still no luck. I can't reinstall W11 from installation media onto any disk, it gets far enough to reboot and then trips over. The main drive is a Samsung 1TB SSD which is only a few months old so I'd be surprised if it's failed already. 

Any ideas?

Have you checked the glovebox?? 

[KennyN]

2 hours ago, Bibs said:

That could be the issue then. I've had the RAM for a few weeks and it's been fine but 'overclocking' it may have done the mboard an injury! 

Apologies, I've just got back to the thread.  This is what I feared in my previous post, unfortunately it can happen

Your new setup should make light work of the editing 👍 

[Bibs]

I've got 75gb of 4k 4.2.2 footage to go through and turn into a video, at least I'll not spend half my time watching a render bar move slowly! The initial conversion to proxies took 6 hours on Tuesday. 

[ChrisJ]

3 hours ago, Bibs said:

I've just ordered a Gen4 NVME for it too which should all help

Get a couple and put them in a RAID - it's what I've done on all the PCs I've built in the last couple of years. Not got to Gen4 yet though

Just be aware of airflow in the chassis you are putting them in. I build a replacement PC for me in a Fractal Design Node304 ( I prefer small PCs, and this was a downsize from a mATX to an ITX), however, the one on the top of the motherboard was in a deadzone for airflow - blocked by the RAM and surrounded by the CPU cooler and GPU. Just kept on overheating up to 99+ degrees. I couldn't cool it at all - I tried a lot of different options (bought an NVME cooler with a fan - no real effect). The one on the bottom of the motherboard was fine. In the end I went back to my previous setup in a Fractal Design Define Mini-C.

Make sure the RAM is compatible  X570 B550 A520_DDR4 QVL ( Matisse ) - 20210902.xlsx (gigabyte.com) - might be a bit slow now  as that list goes up to 4000.

 

[Alex smith]

A faulty BIOS upgrade, a virus, normal operation, or environmental factors (such a power surge or outage) can all cause the BIOS to become corrupt. When the computer restarts if the BIOS is corrupted, the system immediately tries to restore the BIOS from a secret partition.

[Bibs]

Alex, are you a spammer? Asking for a friend...

[C8RKH]

I added new RAM to my machine last year and had a hell of a lot of BIOS issues. You need to check that (1) ALL the memory has the same BIOS settings and in your BIOS setup screen you ensure you have the memory settings to sync to the memory settings!  Hope that makes sense.

Basically never mix memory cards, even of the same make, and ensure you have the right PCI settings that mirror what is on the memory cards.