UEFI boot help needed
 

Anyone here have some insight into UEFI boots? I have a 2 year old Lenovo Thinkcenter M92p desktop that I was attempting to upgrade to Win10 and then do a HD reformat and clean reinstall...and it hasn't gone well.

I spare the full description of my various attempts to make this work, but here's where we stand.

Upgraded to Win10. Created Win10 installation media (both USB and DVD). Attempted to reboot to install media, would get black screen on reboot. Removing install media and rebooting would go back to Windows.

At this point I've progressively eliminated possible conflicts and now, with no videocard, no USB devices other than keyboard and mouse (which are plugged into the 2 USB 2.0 ports), it won't boot past the Lenovo splash screen. I've tried it with the HD unplugged just to see if I could get the UEFI menu to come up, and still just the Lenovo splash screen and nothing else.

Thoughts? At this point I am thinking the motherboard must be done...at the very least, a working motherboard should be able to get me to the UEFI menu when I boot up even if there are no valid boot devices. But then I'm much more comfortable with legacy BIOS settings than the UEFI stuff so I'm not 100% confident I've ruled out all other possibilities.

Not sure on the board, too lazy to look it up (at the bar :party: )

Imo, does the mb docs talk ab using the new bios at all?

Whats wrong with using the old school bios? Seems like it would be the better choice if on laptop unless its ment for gaming.

I wouldn't try to use the new if it worked already with the old :dunno:

Desktop, not laptop.

Was built with Win8, so no legacy BIOS. Just UEFI.

Before you try a new board have you cleared the cmos? Maybe it's glitched and looking to boot from something no longer there.

Ah my bad, drinky drink + mobile ;)

I would try what deezums mentioned. I doubt the MB would be toast.

Is the MB running the latest firmware for the UEFI?

<p>Does this help?&nbsp; UEFI Firmware Settings - Boot to from inside Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums</p><p>It's basically how I needed to force the machine to reboot into UEFI.&nbsp; IIRC, same steps apply to 8.1</p>

Guys...it won't boot past the Lenovo splash screen. I can't update mobo or chipset drivers, I can't select advanced boot options in Windows.

No video card, no USB other than keyboard (in a USB2.0 port), no other cards or peripherals. I've tried with each memory stick individually. I've tried it with the HD plugged in and the HD unplugged. I cleared the CMOS, same result.

So...at this point, I'm not sure what it could be other than the motherboard or the power supply. If I've reset the CMOS, and powering it on with no boot device, I ought to be able to get to the UEFI menu, no? Why is it stuck on the splash screen?

Your computer is actually doing lots of things while you see that splash logo. I like to set my settings to display post data, so I can see what's up. You can't do that now, unfortunately.

It it trying to initialize sata devices, plus lots of other things. If one of those things hangs the boot process stops. If you have removed everything other than the monitor, cleared the cmos, and it still won't get past POST I'm afraid it's toast. Try to remove all the ram except one stick too, shuffle them so you can make sure one isnt' bad.

In the day motherboards had speakers to talk post problems out to you, you might have the header for it with no speaker. If you find a speaker and plug it in it may talk to you.

http://www.computerhope.com/beep.htm

Might be back in business. Apparently removing the CMOS battery doesn't clear it, you have to do switch the CMOS jumper. Got the UEFI menu, going to see if it'll boot from the Win10 DVD now.

Good deal, there are capacitors on board that likely hold battery voltage for a few minutes or more, clearing the jumper shorts that out as I understand it.

Or maybe not. Now if I reset the CMOS, I can get into the UEFI menu. I changed it to legacy boot with an F2 boot order key and F10 UEFI menu...but it still won't boot past the Lenovo splash screen.

Are you sure you can boot that disc? What's it do with no CD in the tray?

Same thing, hangs at the splash screen. Does the same with a USB Win10 install flash drive.

Hm, at this point I'd just start randomly trying things. I have a cmos reset switch jumper for the occasion.

<p>Try repeatedly pressing F1 while it's booting.&nbsp; At some point the Lenovo boot screen should go away and let you into the bios.</p>

At this point I don't know what else to try. After clearing the CMOS, I can get into the UEFI menu. Beyond that, no matter how simple the configuration, it won't boot past the Lenovo splash screen.

Tonight I'm going to double check my Win10 install media DVD and USB to make sure they are really bootable. If they test out okay, and I can't get the Lenovo desktop to boot from them...*shrug*

Have you updated the BIOS? I have hard a hard time getting new computers running on UEFI without first updating them.

Do you have a motherboard speaker?

I can try again tonight, but how would I update the UEFI/BIOS if it won't boot from any removable media?

Burn iso to disc would be the first one I'd try.

Flash BIOS update - ThinkCentre Edge 92, ThinkCentre M82, M92 and M92p, ThinkStation E31 - Lenovo Support (US)

Edit*

Looks like these were just recently updated (8/14/2015)

The readme - https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/t.../9sjy90usa.txt

Okay, over the last couple hours:

1. Confirmed that both my Win10 USB Install drive and Win10 DVD install ISO work perfectly on my work laptop. Both boot to the installer exactly as expected. Retested both on the desktop, still nothing.

2. Poked through the BIOS menu, there's no flash update option there -- the only way to do it is either from the OS (obviously out of the question) or with a boot disk of some type.

3. Created both USB key and CD flash BIOS update disks. Both failed. The CD did get me ever so slightly farther than before -- I can hear the DVD drive spin up, then the screen changes to completely black with a blinking cursor in the top left. But that's it -- it sits on that screen, then the DVD drive spins back down, and nothing else happens.

I have a spare power supply but Lenovo uses a stupid proprietary 14 pin connector for the motherboard. I've ordered a 24 pin to 14 pin adapter so that I can try out the other power supply. If that fails to fix it...

Got the Lenovo PSU adapter. Ran through a bunch of boot-up attempts using my spare power supply. Same result.

So -- having eliminated that, I don't know what else it could be besides the motherboard. I've isolated every other possible factor I can think of.

I'm thinking I could just get a decent micro-ATX motherboard and rebuild it, but then I'm throwing away my Win8/Win10 license, so I'm looking at the cost of a motherboard plus a Windows license.

Or, I could look for a cheap refurb desktop with a LGA1155 socket and swap over the i5 from the Lenovo plus my peripherals. Might not be any more expensive than a motherboard and Windows license, and I'd have some spare parts left over.

Figured it out. The BIOS must have been corrupted at some point and would not allow any boots from removable media. Did a boot block recovery to restore an uncorrupted version of the BIOS, then updated the BIOS with a flash disk, then was able to boot from the Win10 install disk. All good from there.

Nice! :bigtu:

Glad you got this resolved. Interesting outcome with the corrupt bios.

Dammit. Computer worked fine for a few months. Then got super slow. Task manager reported 100% disk usage almost all the time. Started doing some troubleshooting, asked it to run CHKDSK on startup...no startup. Back to a blank black screen when powered on. No BIOS splash screen, nothing. Won't boot from removable media either.

I pulled the HD and hooked it up as an external drive to my laptop, ran CHKDSK /F and it fixed a ton of errors -- like a couple hundred. Was hoping that would take care of it. Ran a couple other HD diagnostics and the SMART info looks fine. Plugged it back in, no change, still black screen after powering on.

Tried the boot block recovery like I did before, no change.

I'm wondering now if there's a video issue -- lots of reports of Win10 not playing nice with video cards if you use the default Windows drivers. Going to try hooking up the VGA to the onboard video and seeing if I at least get some video output that way.

the 100% usage is odd, black screen but no mobo errors or beeps would make me think it's the video card. Try another card like you said :dunno:

And why use window's video drivers? turribru

Odd, but apparently not uncommon with Win10. Lots of "fixes" from uninstalling the included Skype app, to changing the default program associations, to changing various Windows update settings, to changing search indexing settings...or maybe the HD is just failing.

Not the actual Windows drivers, just whatever Radeon driver that Windows automatic update happened to find. Worked fine for a while. But yes, if I can any kind of video output working again, I'll be downloading and installing the latest manufacturer drivers, and turning off onboard video in the BIOS instead of letting it auto-detect.

I'd ditch use of the auto windows update and whatever radeon driver it found foreshore :hatecat:

Slow speeds & 100% usage I would think points to the HD failing. But I'd definitely check out program cpu & ram usage also.

I'm starting to feel smug about my win7 install hearing about these issues. :likecat: My co-worker keeps blabbing about how great 10 is. I am jealous though of his nice baller water cooled cube pc :cry:

I think this mobo is toast. I pulled the video card and ran VGA from the onboard to one monitor. Unplugged the HD and tried with boot CD, boot USB flash drive, and no media at all. Every single time, the fans come on, but no video output and no Post beeps at all.

Throwing good money after bad now. Bought a replacement OEM board on eBay, which worked long enough for me to run a few CHKDSKs and see that the HD had a TON of bad sectors. Ordered an SSD which arrived today. Figured I'd do a clean Windows install first get up and running, then see if I can restore any user files off the old HD.

Nope.

New mobo appears to be toast. Won't boot to HD, won't boot to removable media. Even if I remove all boot media and power on, it won't output video to show me a BIOS menu. Tried clearing CMOS, tried doing another boot block recovery, nothing. Tried replacing the OEM crappy PSU with a spare 500w PSU I have. Nothing.

Ordered a GIGABYTE mobo. I will chase down every stupid Lenovo component in this computer and replace it if I have to.

New mobo, new SSD, new case, new heatsink, new PSU (already on hand). Reused the Intel i5-3470 CPU, the original memory (plus some extra), and the original DVD-RW drive. Since I excised all of the stupid Lenovo parts, everything runs perfectly. I mean -- perfectly. It's much faster than we need and has been 100% stable. Had to chat with Microsoft to get my Win10 license re-activated on the new hardware, but that only took about 30 minutes.

No more Lenovo, and no more Western Digital. They can both pound sand.


GIGABYTE GA-B75M-D3H LGA 1155 Intel B75 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Motherboard
Intel Core i5-3470 CPU
Thermaltake Cooling Fan for Intel Core i7/i5/i3 CL-P0556
12 GB Crucial Ballistix Sport RAM
PNY CS2211 240 GB 2.5" SATA III SSD
Cooler Master eXtreme Power Plus 500w Power Supply
Rosewill Dual Fans MicroATX Mini Tower Computer Case FBM-01

Have yet to try PNY.

wanna do a hwmonitor test and prime95 run before and after? :naughty:

Can't run anything "before" -- mobo and HD were dead/dying. Happy to run anything "after" but not particularly interesting without a reference point.

Haven't used PNY drives before either, but it was on sale. The new line gets good reviews and they upped their warranty to match industry standards.

Reference point being... idle temps and 15mins into prime. :bigtu:

Oh, I gotcha. You actually interested? I can run it and see.

EDIT:

Okay, downloaded HWMonitor and Prime95. First screenshot is HWMonitor with computer awake but basically idle. Second screenshot is 15 into the Prime95 stress test with default settings.

Before:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1456886539


After:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1456886539



System remained completely stable and responsive during all testing. It actually ran Windows Update around the 9 minute mark.

:bigtu:

So that's okay, you think? From what I saw online, it seemed like the i5-3470 was good until you start pushing it into the 70's.

Intel quotes max TCASE for that CPU as 67.4°C at the spreader. So assuming your motherboard's temp sensor is reading about the same as spreader temp, you've still got a fair bit of margin from the official spec, which is, in and of itself, fairly conservative. From what I've read, they don't even start throttling back until the core temp gets up into the 90s.

What type of heatsink are you using? oem?

That's good. Nothing we use that computer for is particularly CPU-intensive so I can't imagine it'll ever see 60°C again.