H77-PRO4/MVP: Black screen with "Ultra fast" boot or CSM disabled

[mh0001]

Hello!

I recently updated to the new Beta-UEFI L1.33A which has Windows 8 support. There are some new settings like "Fast Boot" and the possibility to disable the Compatibility support module (CSM / BIOS emulation) for faster boot.
My problem is, that I'm getting a black screen when I change "Fast Boot" to "Ultra fast" or when I disable the CSM. If I save these settings and reboot, I get a blank screen (monitor says "no signal") and Windows doesn't boot, but the fans are running.

So I can't even get access to UEFI setup to revert the settings. The only possibility is to do a CMOS reset and then leave CSM enabled and "Fast boot" on it's default setting or just "Fast" and not "Ultra fast". I tried to connect the DVI cable to the onboard Intel HD graphics instead of my NVidia GTX 460, but this doesn't give me a signal either.

What could cause this issue? Could it be, that my GTX 460 is not UEFI compliant or something like that? The UEFI was configured to initialize the PCI-Express graphics at first, so maybe it locks up when it tries to access the NVidia card?
I hope there will be a solution because I wanted to use the pure UEFI boot. :(

[ASRock TSD - Emily]

Hi mh0001,

L1.33A is for OS Windows 8.
If your OS is Windows7, we suggest you don't have to update L1.33A.

And I explain something about Ultra Fast", the option is related to below items.
1. Ultra Fast is only supprted by Windows 8.
2. If you install add-on VGA card, please check whether your VGA card support UEFI GOP.

Thanks!

Have a nice day
ASRock TSD
Emily

[mh0001]

I'm using Windows 8 (x64)! It is installed in UEFI mode on a SSD with GPT layout. But when I now activate "Ultra fast" or disable CSM I get a black screen and have to do a CMOS reset. The setting "Fast" is the fastest I can go without locking me out from my PC. How can I check if my GTX 460 supports UEFI GOP? As a suggestion: It would be nice to have an auto-fallback to default boot settings if the UEFI can't proceed with Ultra fast, so I would not have to set jumpers to do a CMOS reset everytime until I figured out which piece of hardware is casuing this issue :(

[ASRock TSD - Emily]

Dear mh0001,

About UEFI GOP support question, please kindly contact the manufacturer of VGA card to check whether they have provided the VBIOS to support UEFI GOP.

Thanks!

Have a nice day
ASRock TSD
Emily

[mh0001]

Gigabyte, the manufacturer of my VGA card, has answered my question. The GTX 460 does NOT have UEFI GOP support. Only their Kepler-based VGA cards / Geforce GTX 6XX have UEFI GOP support and it doesn't seem like they will release an update. :( But why isn't it possible just to give control of the VGA card to Windows 8 without the UEFI trying to access the VGA card? If I want to access the UEFI setup I could connect my monitor to the iGPU, but most of the time I just want to boot straight into Windows 8, so it wouldn't matter if I don't see the boot screen. But at the moment it seems like the UEFI is really crashing when Ultra fast boot is enabled because I hear no HDD activity and no starting sound. From as I understand, even a VGA card without UEFI GOP support can be used by Windows. It just wouldn't be able to show the UEFI Setup or boot screen.

[dongjuanyong]

Gigabyte, the manufacturer of my VGA card, has answered my question. The GTX 460 does NOT have UEFI GOP support. Only their Kepler-based VGA cards / Geforce GTX 6XX have UEFI GOP support and it doesn't seem like they will release an update. :( But why isn't it possible just to give control of the VGA card to Windows 8 without the UEFI trying to access the VGA card? If I want to access the UEFI setup I could connect my monitor to the iGPU, but most of the time I just want to boot straight into Windows 8, so it wouldn't matter if I don't see the boot screen. But at the moment it seems like the UEFI is really crashing when Ultra fast boot is enabled because I hear no HDD activity and no starting sound. From as I understand, even a VGA card without UEFI GOP support can be used by Windows. It just wouldn't be able to show the UEFI Setup or boot screen.

Did you try to install windows 7 with gpt hdd (uefi boot)?
I think the boot screen of windows 7 caould show some differences between uefi gop supported VGA cards and unsupported ones:
If your card supports it, it will show an animated boot screen, which four colored balls merge into a windows logo. That is the same boot animation when you install windows 7 on a mbr hdd (no uefi boot).
If your card does not support it, it will only show a green bar, which indicates the booting progress. That is the same boot screen they used on windows vista.

I didn't remember exactly where I saw these. But you may try it and see the results under windows 7.
Now I am wondering the uefi gop support of AMD(ATI) based VGA cards. Did you have any information about them from gigabytes or other places?
Thank you.

[mh0001]

Did you try to install windows 7 with gpt hdd (uefi boot)?
I think the boot screen of windows 7 caould show some differences between uefi gop supported VGA cards and unsupported ones:
If your card supports it, it will show an animated boot screen, which four colored balls merge into a windows logo. That is the same boot animation when you install windows 7 on a mbr hdd (no uefi boot).
If your card does not support it, it will only show a green bar, which indicates the booting progress. That is the same boot screen they used on windows vista.

I didn't remember exactly where I saw these. But you may try it and see the results under windows 7.
Now I am wondering the uefi gop support of AMD(ATI) based VGA cards. Did you have any information about them from gigabytes or other places?
Thank you.

I think I found something very interesting. It's an AMD presentation from 2011 about UEFI GOP. Look at page 22 "GOP readiness at AMD". According to the following pages, AMD has delivered a UEFI GOP driver for their discrete GPUs starting with the Evergreen-chip (Radeon HD5000 series). So I think the probability is pretty high that at least the HD 7000 series should have support for UEFI GOP. But shouldn't Asrock know this as well? I think they have tested their Ultra fast feature at lest with one discrete GPU ^^

[mh0001]

I forgot to post the link ^^ http://www.uefi.org/learning_center/...FI_GOP_AMD.pdf

[dongjuanyong]

I think I found something very interesting. It's an AMD presentation from 2011 about UEFI GOP. Look at page 22 "GOP readiness at AMD". According to the following pages, AMD has delivered a UEFI GOP driver for their discrete GPUs starting with the Evergreen-chip (Radeon HD5000 series). So I think the probability is pretty high that at least the HD 7000 series should have support for UEFI GOP. But shouldn't Asrock know this as well? I think they have tested their Ultra fast feature at lest with one discrete GPU ^^

It looks like amd has done more work with microsoft than nvidia, especially in implement of uefi gop.
I don't think asrock has done so much tests, since I heard some compatibility problems of asrock motherboards with pcie 3.0 VGA cards (like geforce 6xx series an hd7xxx series).
But it would be very nice that some asrock staff could give us a list of uefi gop supported VGA cards they had tested.

[mh0001]

It looks like amd has done more work with microsoft than nvidia, especially in implement of uefi gop.
I don't think asrock has done so much tests, since I heard some compatibility problems of asrock motherboards with pcie 3.0 VGA cards (like geforce 6xx series an hd7xxx series).
But it would be very nice that some asrock staff could give us a list of uefi gop supported VGA cards they had tested.

I got an answer from Gigabyte support related to UEFI GOP support in AMD cards:

AMD 7 series card will support this UEFI GOP feature later. AMD vendor is still testing thus the BIOS is not ready to release yet.