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Hi
So my little Asus Win10 lightweight netbook thing (just an SSD) decided it was going to update the BIOS when I switched it on earlier. Great, except Win10 wouldn't load after and just getting a blank screen after the Asus logo screen.
Decided something had gone pear shaped so presently reinstalling Win10 on the basis the issue seems to be post-BIOS checks. Not done a Win10 rebuild before.
Is it usual to get extended periods of a lightly backlit screen with the odd flick on and off?
I can't really tell if it's doing anything.
Any tips, guidance, knowledge, (intelligent) observations invited to reassure me my 3 month old machine is going to make it through this (next stop warranty I suspect but I'd rather not send back as it's got my stuff on it, although I guess they get purged somehow).
Is there a way of making a USB boot stick or something if this fails?
Is it usual to get extended periods of a lightly backlit screen with the odd flick on and off?
Not in my experience. Leave it overnight, come back in the morning.
presently reinstalling Win10
Is there a way of making a USB boot stick or something if this fails?
How are you reinstalling without a USB installer? What exactly have you done so far?
(next stop warranty
That hopefully should be unnecessary.
Try googling "[your laptop model number] bios update windows 10" or variations thereof to see if this is a known problem.
No expert but spent many, many hours buggering around with PC's.
At this stage, let it do it's stuff and just check on it occasionally in case it is waiting for a prompt or such.
If nothing changes by the morning then plan B.
Hi Cougar
I'm using the inbuilt Win10 installer to do what the diagnostic tools described as a "Windows Reset" I assume there's an image of Win buried on the SSD. It gives an option of retaining personal files etc. which I have chosen to do.
I'm guessing from your comments this is a "several hours" thing to run end to end?
Sorry forgive my ignorance. My last rebuild was done under Win7 a long time ago and I have largely had a charmed existence with home PCs where they've not needed much tending.
I did do a Google search before I started but got zip all by way of hits.
I find that fresh installed from scratch with win 10 water pretty fast, but 'upgrades' or 'repair' or 'install but keep existing files' can take a very very long time with some odd behaviour.
Leave it overnight and see what happens.
I vaguely recall on one Levine having to run the installer again when choosing to keep existing files, as it seemed to get stuck. Worked fine Inn the end though.
Thanks all.
Left overnight, no signs of life beyond backlit screen. I am beginning to suspect a problem with the BIOS upgrade or a hardware failure.
I can't access the safe boot menu or anything now. Just 5 seconds of Asus logo and then grey nothingness.
Time to find the receipt and send it off I think.
Can you get into the BIOS setup (something like F8 during startup)? If not then I'd guess that the BIOS update went wrong (although that doesn't sound the case if you can get to the Windows installer); if you can it might be worth checking checking the settings and re-saving them.
If you want to persevere I'd try installing from a USB stick using Microsoft's media creation tool (the stuff on the SSD is probably very out of date).
Thanks. F8 is not working
Do you happen to know how big a USB stick I need? Guessing 64 or 128GB ought to be enough?
It may not be F8 on your laptop, I don't think that it's standardised (might be worth Googling your model).
I'm fairly sure that a 64Gb usb stick is fine.
8GB is enough.
F8 won't work.
In the old days a system used BIOS to do the initial startup, then handed over completely to the operating system. F8 would get you into Windows' troubleshooting menu, and another key (varied by manufacturer - Del, F1, F2, F10, F11, F12...) would get into BIOS settings.
Modern systems use UEFI instead of BIOS, it's symbiotically linked with Windows 10 and they talk to each other. If you can get to the W10 troubleshooting menu, you can get to UEFI settings under troubleshooting / advanced or something similar. The tricksy bit is getting to that menu when it's not booting, a feature called Fast Boot will generally prevent you from using F-key shennanigans.
Assuming it's still intact, you could try booting it up and them pulling the power three times (take the battery out and just pull the power cord after the ASUS splash screen disappears) then booting normally. Try holding shift at power on. Try holding F2 at power on.
If you can get to the UEFI settings, see if there's a reset / set to defaults option. Other things to look for, make sure ACHI is enabled (or "legacy boot" disabled, it's the same thing). Turn off Fast Boot and Secure Boot (won't fix the problem but makes troubleshooting easier).
Were there Windows Updates pending when you last shut it down?
That's good info Cougar and explains my own W10 black screen experience last week. I managed to get into the BIOS settings and set it to boot from USB but it made not a jot of difference. It still hung on a W10 flavoured black screen during start up. Mine started misbehaving immediately after a W10 update and I've tried the power off big stick many times and various/random F and other keys to no avail.
On some UEFI BIOS holding down Escape key as it POSTs brings up a screen with the F key options loading (and halts the POST)
I managed to get into the BIOS settings and set it to boot from USB
IME most UEFI have a one-time boot menu, usually F12, rather than needing to get into the settings proper.
It still hung on a W10 flavoured black screen during start up. Mine started misbehaving immediately after a W10 update
I fixed one of these a couple of weeks ago (which is why I asked about updates). If you can get to a command line, you can use dism to roll back the last update. Nothing else I tried worked, and if that had failed my next step would have been the nuclear option. (Only way to be sure, etc) If you're still in the same boat yell and I'll see if I can find it again.
A quick google would suggest ctrl-alt-delete may give you a restart option which fixes it for a specific recent update, incidentally.
Got it.
http://woshub.com/windows-wont-boot-after-updates/
If you're accessing this from W10 startup repair, it's likely that your home drive will be a virtual X:\ drive and the real system drive will be C:\ - so replace D: with C: in that guide. In my case I just removed the last update at the bottom of the list and it worked, YMMV.
(Obviously, try the automated repair / system restore options first).
That's brilliant thanks. I'm not getting any auto/repair options and ctrl-alt-del is not doing anything. I'll boot from an installation disc or USB once I've downloaded W10 and go from there. Cheers and sorry for the slight hijack.
Thanks all, busy day at work and school open evening so only just popped back.
I'll give some of this a go on Sunday when the weather's supposed to be rubbish.
Wish me luck and good luck boblo. Sounds like we're similarly stuck!
Yeah good luck, I bloody hate PC's!
I initially fixed mine with a credit card, I'm just doing this out of curiosity and then to keep as a spare.