Help for those with weird computer issues

[EonityLuna]

Hey guys, I think a few may remember me from a few days ago when I posted a panicked thread in the motherboards forum about my USB 3.0 ports not working properly. Well, after a whole week of troubleshooting, back-and-forth between myself and the PC repair shop, and through trial and error, I believe I managed to locate the root of the problem and fix it once and for all.

 

Yeah, this post isn't a thread asking for help for a PC problem and might not fit in here but please bear with me. I think what I discovered these past few days could help save a soul somewhere eventually.

 

Before I continue, here's details of my system:
- OS: Windows 8.1 Pro

- Asus Z87-Deluxe motherboard

- 8GB Kingston DDR3 RAM at 1333MHz (if I remember correctly)

- MSI Nvidia GTX 760 Twin Frozr Gaming OC Edition graphics card with 2GB GB of video memory

- Samsung 840 Evo 120GB SSD

- Toshiba DT01ACA100 1TB hard drive

- ATAPI DVD A  DH16A3S DVD drive, recycled from an old (I think 2008 or thereabouts) and long-dead Acer system I once had
- a USB 3.0 expansion card attached via PCIe
- a Wacom Intuos Pen & Touch Small, Leap Motion, and Logitech Bluetooth Illuminated Keyboard as my input peripherals
- two external hard drives, one for backup and another for secondary storage
- finally, a Dell U2415 monitor, which has its own USB 3.0 hub

 

Basically, the USB 3.0 problems were somehow related (I had thought they were unrelated) to earlier problems with my computer acting wonky sometimes after resuming from sleep, which in turn were related to my BIOS, chipset drivers, and - surprise - the BIOS on my GTX 760. It was an extremely complex affair figuring everything out, and I had to do a lot of Google searches in between - I had previously thought it was the version of the BIOS I was using at first (version 2103 versus version 1802), then thought it was my chipset drivers at fault.

 

In my BIOS settings I had hardware fast boot enabled, which at least in part caused the wonky problems and USB 3.0 issues, possibly along with the chipset drivers I was using. The ones I downloaded from Asus's web site were version 9.4.0.1026, while the ones I found in a stash of drivers for my PC that I downloaded and forgot about in my external hard disk were version 9.4.0.1027 - and apparently that was enough to perhaps start throwing up issues.

 

To rule out that it was a failed USB firmware update though, I used - and finally successfully, after having it fail on me previously - re-flashed the firmware for my Asmedia USB 3.0 controller chip. However, that, along with installing the new chipset drivers, still threw up errors for me and didn't solve the problem, at least not completely. Through trial and error (as well as re-flashing my BIOS between versions 1802 and 2103) I determined the hardware fast boot setting was in the way; doing some research online I learned that it's a setting that's fully supported only if all the devices attached to the computer supports UEFI natively, including the graphics card by way of supporting Graphics Output Protocol (GOP). I could turn it off and fix the issue, and leave it at that, but I wanted to know how I could have it on without throwing up issues.

 

To determine whether if my graphics card supported UEFI natively, I decided to turn off the compatibility support module in my BIOS and see if my computer could still boot normally (if that module is off, any hardware that doesn't support UEFI will cause the system to refuse to boot apparently). Something happened and an error message popped up when I first tried that, but I couldn't catch it before it vanished. I did know it didn't work though, because the next time I checked the BIOS, the module was on again.

 

I read around and apparently, a non UEFI-compliant graphics card could be upgraded to one that does by way of a firmware upgrade. I found and downloaded the firmware for my exact graphics card, then fumbled with NVFlash for a bit before I found that the latest version would work from within Windows (no need to create and boot from a DOS drive). After successfully updating my graphics card firmware though, one of the Nvidia drivers threw up a code 50 BSoD before restarting; I was afraid I might have thoroughly borked my computer, but when it restarted with my computer and graphics card showing up fine in Device Manager, I knew it must have somehow worked.

 

Went back into the BIOS and enabled hardware fast boot while disabling the compatibility service module, and my computer booted up much faster than I remembered, and everything, especially my USB 3.0 drives, showed up fine everywhere, in This PC and Device Manager.

 

I have been doing tests and using my system as normal for the past two days, and so far everything seems to be running fine again. It does appear that I have indeed finally banished my PC problems while at the same time fully updated my system to the latest standards and enjoying faster boot times in the process.

To recap (a.k.a. tl;dr):
- your system needs to fully support UEFI for something like a hardware fast boot setting in your BIOS to work properly, otherwise all sorts of weird errors may occur when you use your computer
- turning on hardware fast boot can lead to issue if your system isn't fully UEFI-compliant, even if you installed your operating system in UEFI mode
- graphics cards need to support GOP to be truely UEFI-compliant

- disabling the compatibility support module can cause your computer to throw up errors (and from what I read, even refuse to boot, though it didn't happen in my case) if not all of your hardware is fully UEFI-compliant
- a firmware update for graphics card to support GOP may be available, especially for more recent graphics cards, but it must be for your exact graphics card, down to the manufacturer, variant, and all. Failed firmware updates for your graphics card will brick it.
- for those using Nvidia cards, the latest version of Nvflash works from inside Windows, but you may see a BSoD from the Nvidia driver after you flash it. If things work fine after your computer restarts though, then it should mean no lasting damage occurred; correct me if I'm wrong.

- if all your hardware devices truely support UEFI, then you can safely disable the compatibility support module in your BIOS and enable hardware fast boot (or something similar) to enjoy blazing-fast boot times with no issues

- the right chipset drivers and BIOS firmware is also important - ultimately, don't touch it unless something is broke in your system, or if you believe it might help fix any issues you are having
- finally, always use trial and error. Somewhere along the way I begun to suspect it was a setting in my BIOS, and after re-flashing my BIOS in an attempt to fix the issue I changed each setting one-by-one to my preference and tested until I ran into problems. This was how I found out the hardware fast boot setting in my BIOS were the root cause of the issues I were having.

 

Again, thanks for bearing with me here - I am a noob to such things and all these might be second-nature to some of you here, but for other people it might save their lives. If any of my info is wrong I welcome anyone here to correct me.