ASUS Z690-E Boot Option Disabled

Rhendar · January 26, 2022

I have a mostly brand new build that I've been working on. The main three components related to this issue are the case, the motherboard, and the AIO. The case is a Fractal Design Define 7. The motherboard is an ASUS ROG Z690-E. The AIO is an EK AIO 240 D-RGB. I put everything together today and the system booted into the BIOS after an error concerning the CPU FAN. The Z690 thought it was missing. However, it's simply plugged into the Define 7's Fan Controller per their recommendation, which I've attached a picture of. As you can see it says to connect the 4-pin PWM fans to the Fan Controller and then connect the last connector to CPU_FAN. The fans do turn on when the PC boots.

The problem is, the Z690 has disabled all ability to change the boot drive. I can see the drive with an existing install of Windows within the BIOS. It's a Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB NVMe plugged into slot 1. I have no ability to change the boot order for some reason. Even the CSM is disabled. Is this an ASUS bug?

I forgot to mention that the EK AIO 4-pin connector coming of the pump itself is connected to the AIO_PUMP header on the Z690.

Edited January 26, 2022 by Rhendar
Additional Info

Robchil · January 26, 2022

This is done different on each build, in bios under monitoring i have set my CPU FAN on ignore, i run a full custom watercooling loop, and have a thermal sensor in the loop so if i run the fan control on any other but computer that atleast on the rog 390E board, CPU_FAN could only run after CPU temp, the other fan headers can be configured to run on the tempsensor that shows the water temperature, so they don't seem to explode everytime your CPU are working hard.

on my board there was water pump port and a AIO pwm port, it's safe to use either. just remember to set CPU_FAN to ignore so you don't get an error at boot.

Rhendar · January 26, 2022

@Robchil Yeah, that's the downside to custom builds. I don't think the CPU Fan is the issue. I think it has to do with UEFI and Windows 10. My 980 Pro has a working install of Win 10 on it. I suspect the ASUS wants Win 11 due to some new regulations. I've seen some other threads talking about using a program called Rufus to install Windows. Not sure if that'll work. I really don't want to nuke the entire drive over this. You'd think ASUS would put out a guide or something.

Robchil · January 27, 2022

27 minutes ago, Rhendar said:

@Robchil Yeah, that's the downside to custom builds. I don't think the CPU Fan is the issue. I think it has to do with UEFI and Windows 10. My 980 Pro has a working install of Win 10 on it. I suspect the ASUS wants Win 11 due to some new regulations. I've seen some other threads talking about using a program called Rufus to install Windows. Not sure if that'll work. I really don't want to nuke the entire drive over this. You'd think ASUS would put out a guide or something.

did you start installing by loading RAID/UEFI drivers, at disk selection of windows install, you should be able to just load the drivers, see the disk and reboot. to it.

after first install it's a setting in bios to retain uefi drivers.

edit: come to think about it... are the m.2 ports set to uefi in bios?