Hi so before I start let me just state that I have checked out the sticky thread relating to this issue and have ticked off each of the points on that thread. (https://forums.tomshardware.com/thr...deo-output-troubleshooting-checklist.1285536/)
I recently obtained an M.2 SSD which I tried installing yesterday. I used Macrium Reflect to clone my existing (smaller) SSD onto the new M.2 and all was fine. Couldn't get the M.2 to boot with the old SSD still attached (always defaulted to my original drive) so I disconnected it leaving me with just the M.2 connected. Up to this point the M.2 has always been accessible via Windows file explorer and visible in the BIOS. Still not booting and after running Macrium's "Fix Problems with Windows Boot" tool on their USB Recovery Tool I read a few threads about my motherboard that stated that it is not set up by default to run the M.2 and advised I changed one or two settings. Those settings had no effect, still couldn't boot to the M.2 and it was getting late in the day so wanted to just go back to my SSD and play some games before bed - this is where the problems started.
I removed the M.2 from my system altogether and hooked the SSD back up however when I restarted I had no POST at all - not even the BIOS screen popped up for me to check anything in there. So I did some of the basic things you're supposed to do with no POST and reset the CMOS by initially using the CMOS reset pins on the board and secondly removing the CMOS battery, waiting 10-15 minutes and then putting it back in. In both situations I was able to get POST again however rather than allowing me into the BIOS it skipped straight past the BIOS logo screen and into an American Megatrends page that stated I needed to reconfigure my settings - understandable, I just reset the CMOS. F1 takes me into the BIOS.
So now that I'm in the BIOS and this is where I'm a bit lost - whilst I know how to navigate the BIOS, the most complex thing I've ever used it for is changing boot orders of my disks. I have never manually played around with the other BIOS settings previously and therefore assumed that I must be using the BIOS defaults - right? So I use F5 to reset the defaults, save and exit expecting all the be right and me to be booting back into windows. But on my next boot I always get no POST again and after powering off and powering back on, I will get POST but will be taken to another American Megatrends screen that states that Overclocking has failed and that I need to head into BIOS to reconfigure (different message than before).
Now I've looked on some forums and found that apparently my board comes with some Overclocking settings turned on by default to make use of some chip on Intel processors and that uses a BIOS setting called Turbo mode. I turn this off as I don't care about overclocking anything and if overclocking is failing, I don't want it. I search for any other references to overclocking, find nothing that I'm comfortable changing and restart, saving changes. At this point I end up back to no POST permanently, even between power downs. The one consistent thing is that my BOOT_DEVICE_LED is always lit when I'm stuck with no post.
Any help or advice that anyone can give would be of great help. Here's some of the troubleshooting I've done already:
I recently obtained an M.2 SSD which I tried installing yesterday. I used Macrium Reflect to clone my existing (smaller) SSD onto the new M.2 and all was fine. Couldn't get the M.2 to boot with the old SSD still attached (always defaulted to my original drive) so I disconnected it leaving me with just the M.2 connected. Up to this point the M.2 has always been accessible via Windows file explorer and visible in the BIOS. Still not booting and after running Macrium's "Fix Problems with Windows Boot" tool on their USB Recovery Tool I read a few threads about my motherboard that stated that it is not set up by default to run the M.2 and advised I changed one or two settings. Those settings had no effect, still couldn't boot to the M.2 and it was getting late in the day so wanted to just go back to my SSD and play some games before bed - this is where the problems started.
I removed the M.2 from my system altogether and hooked the SSD back up however when I restarted I had no POST at all - not even the BIOS screen popped up for me to check anything in there. So I did some of the basic things you're supposed to do with no POST and reset the CMOS by initially using the CMOS reset pins on the board and secondly removing the CMOS battery, waiting 10-15 minutes and then putting it back in. In both situations I was able to get POST again however rather than allowing me into the BIOS it skipped straight past the BIOS logo screen and into an American Megatrends page that stated I needed to reconfigure my settings - understandable, I just reset the CMOS. F1 takes me into the BIOS.
So now that I'm in the BIOS and this is where I'm a bit lost - whilst I know how to navigate the BIOS, the most complex thing I've ever used it for is changing boot orders of my disks. I have never manually played around with the other BIOS settings previously and therefore assumed that I must be using the BIOS defaults - right? So I use F5 to reset the defaults, save and exit expecting all the be right and me to be booting back into windows. But on my next boot I always get no POST again and after powering off and powering back on, I will get POST but will be taken to another American Megatrends screen that states that Overclocking has failed and that I need to head into BIOS to reconfigure (different message than before).
Now I've looked on some forums and found that apparently my board comes with some Overclocking settings turned on by default to make use of some chip on Intel processors and that uses a BIOS setting called Turbo mode. I turn this off as I don't care about overclocking anything and if overclocking is failing, I don't want it. I search for any other references to overclocking, find nothing that I'm comfortable changing and restart, saving changes. At this point I end up back to no POST permanently, even between power downs. The one consistent thing is that my BOOT_DEVICE_LED is always lit when I'm stuck with no post.
Any help or advice that anyone can give would be of great help. Here's some of the troubleshooting I've done already:
- Removed all but one RAM chip. Tried multiple RAM chips in multiple ports on different boots - board always seems to pass the RAM check so I don't believe there's an issue there.
- Remove GPU and tried to boot using integrated graphics (no change)
- Double-checked all PSU connections to MOBO, CPU, GPU, SSD
- Removed CMOS battery for 15+ minutes
- Removed all peripheral devices except keyboard and HDMI
- Motherboard: Asus Z170-A
- Processor: Intel Core i7 Quad-Core i7-6700 3.4GHz
- RAM: Corsair 4x 16GB DDR4-3200 UDIMM 1.2V
- PSU: Corsair 600W
- GPU: NVidia 1060 6GB
- Attempted M.2: Crucial P5 1TB
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