Question Is my motherboard toast?

[Sam Poland]

I was having problems installing NVidia drivers, even older ones, so I decided to update the BIOS.
I have a Asus Tuff Gaming Z790 Plus wifi with a i9-13900K installed. I upgraded the bios from 1663 to 1805. Everything seemed to go fine. After a couple minutes of not booting it says the "system has POSTed in safe mode."

I've tried rolling back to 1803 and then back to 1663. I can't get the computer to start normally. I always get the "...POSTed in safe mode" message. Because of the NVidia drivers not installing I had run some diagnostics while the computer was still booting into Win11. I ran a MEMTEST86, passed. And I ran two tests in Samsung Magician on my SSD and both passed. I unplugged the PC and removed the CMOS battery, no luck.

Do I need to buy a new motherboard?

 

[Lutfij]

When posting a thread of troubleshooting nature, it's customary to include your full system's specs. Please list the specs to your build like so:
CPU:
CPU cooler:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS:
Monitor:
include the age of the PSU apart from it's make and model.

Ideally you're advised to clear the CMOS since Asus has been known to go bonkers sometimes after a BIOS update. Clear the CMOS by disconnecting from the wall and display, then remove the CMOS battery, press and hold down the power button for 30secs to drain any residual power then reseat the battery after 30mins.

By any chance are you recycling an older OS install from an older platform? If so, you need to reinstall the OS.

 

[Sam Poland]

Win11 was installed 2 years ago when I bought all the parts listed below and built the system. CMOS battery was removed for about 2 minutes, not 30.

Other specs not listed in my original post:
Cooler: LST Deepcool 360 AIO
RAM: GSkill Trident Z5 DDR5 6000 4x16GB
SSD: Samsung 980 Pro 2TB
PSU: EVGA SuperNova 80 Plus 850w
Chassis: XPG BattleCruiser
LCD: LG C2 55"

 

[Sam Poland]

When posting a thread of troubleshooting nature, it's customary to include your full system's specs. Please list the specs to your build like so:
CPU:
CPU cooler:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS:
Monitor:
include the age of the PSU apart from it's make and model.

Ideally you're advised to clear the CMOS since Asus has been known to go bonkers sometimes after a BIOS update. Clear the CMOS by disconnecting from the wall and display, then remove the CMOS battery, press and hold down the power button for 30secs to drain any residual power then reseat the battery after 30mins.

By any chance are you recycling an older OS install from an older platform? If so, you need to reinstall the OS.

I followed your instructions to clear the CMOS. No change. I went into the BIOS, loaded the defaults and hit save and exit. After a few minutes I got the "...POSTed in safe mode" again.