New motherboard not working

Windows11 requires TPM and a few other things to be present at motherboard level, which server boards may not have. Your choices are probably Windows10 or Windows Server
 
Last edited:
So after a bit of experimentation in the BIOS I found the boot option was set to network first, which is probably why it was hanging. Instead selected the USB media as boot device. And lo and behold, the W11 installation popup appeared. Set the language options and a product key and it went away checking and came back and said 'this PC is not ready for Windows11' or similar.

Not sure what to do next... why would a brand new motherboard and Xeons be 'not suitable'? Is there a way of fixing it or is it really the case that W11 is a waste of time?
Server boards like this are often running Linux or somethin', you may need to manually enable whatever features are required in the BIOS, usually TPM and secure boot. Your board does have a TPM header if the CPU doesn't have a firmware option, but from what I can see in the manual it does have these features.
 
Yes its probably complaining about TPM, oh well W10 will do. It's a bit illogical of MS to end of life W10 if its required by new PCs...

But I have another problem. Although the BIOS sees the NVMe devices, the WIndows installer does not. If I open a cmd window and use diskpart, there is no sign of the NVMe's - so I can't install an OS. Well, I can on one of the old SATA drives that are present, but they are old, smaller drives. Why would the windows installer not see the NVMe's???
 
But I have another problem. Although the BIOS sees the NVMe devices, the WIndows installer does not. If I open a cmd window and use diskpart, there is no sign of the NVMe's - so I can't install an OS. Well, I can on one of the old SATA drives that are present, but they are old, smaller drives. Why would the windows installer not see the NVMe's???
Sounds like either you have CSM enabled, or they're formatted to MBR, since this is another joy of Windows 11.

Windows 11 can only install to GPT.
 
Last edited:
No this is with the W10 installer... I'm wondering if the vanilla W10 install has drivers for the NVMe devices? I've a Crucial T700 and a Samsung 990 NVMe drives.
 
Yes its probably complaining about TPM, oh well W10 will do. It's a bit illogical of MS to end of life W10 if its required by new PCs...

But I have another problem. Although the BIOS sees the NVMe devices, the WIndows installer does not. If I open a cmd window and use diskpart, there is no sign of the NVMe's - so I can't install an OS. Well, I can on one of the old SATA drives that are present, but they are old, smaller drives. Why would the windows installer not see the NVMe's???

It's not required by new PCs. All recent desktop motherboards and CPUs are compatible. You've got a server motherboard and CPUs.

Yes, sounds like you'll need to download the NVMe drivers from Intel - probably what they call Intel Rapid Storage.
 
Hmm finding what's needed isn't easy. There are drivers on Crucial's site but they don't appear to be suitable. ANd on Intel's download page I see stuff for Optane but not vanilla SSDs.

I installed Windows 10 on my current server a few years ago (Asus motherboard and twin E5-2640's) on a NVMe drive without a hitch. Which is why I'm puzzled there is an issue now...
 
Last edited:
Some progress!

Firstly I used 'rufus' to prepare a Windows11 bootable USB which will allow booting without the TPM etc. requirements.
That alone did not work, needed to make the NVMe's visible, the solution was a well hidden option 'AUTOVMD' in the BIOS. Disabling this option allowed Windows installer to see the NVMe disks. No idea what this option is but it needs to be disabled!

With one of the two 2Tb disks as install target, the install could proceed... it got through the first pass, rebooted and then (after a worrisome pause) presented a screen with 3 boot options - W10 and two W11 choices. Where did it get that from? Selected one of the W11 options and another reboot, and then a different (black and white) installing screen.

And finally... the Windows11 screen! Still not seeing the wired network or indeed the 2 ethernet adapters, need to figure that one out.
 
Well the saga doesn't stop... despite being able to install Windows 11 and starting the restore of backed up data, I'm running into BSOD problems.

Symptoms are:
- the PC gets slower and slower, expecially windows GUI related stuff having severe lags e.g. to redraw a file explorer window.
- copying or unzipping large numbers of files gets progressively slower and slower until the GUI pretty much freezes and then a BSOD with an error 'a critical process has died' occurs.
- during this time the cpus are lightly loaded - no more than 5% - and the CPU temperatures are less than 50C.
- the event viewer shows nothing much apart from warnings along the lines of "a corrected hardware error has occurred", something to do with a PCI express device.

I've tried running memtest86 which hasn't spotted anything, run sfc etc. Could it be the C drive - yet chkdsk finds nothing?
 
presented a screen with 3 boot options - W10 and two W11 choices. Where did it get that from?

Every time you start an install, Windows creates a hidden recovery partition, which will not be removed unless you use DISKPART to remove it fully.


Feels like a driver issue - either Network or Storage. Look in the Event Log for clues as to what causes the crash.

Support page here:

- Is everything you have compatible? (Memory / Device Support)
- Did you install the Intel and other chipset drivers etc from Asus website? (Drivers and Tools). Try the latest Intel ones too (https://www.intel.com/content/www/u...s-and-systems-based-on-intel-741-chipset.html)



It's sounding more and more like you should be using Windows Server or Linux, not a desktop OS on this motherboard. Using Windows11 with no TPM will cause you problems with any updates anyway.
 
Last edited:
I actually got a TPM module for Asus on Amazon, fitted it and PC Health Check says its W11 ready now - all boxes ticked.
I'm going to try a fresh install on an unused NVMe. Will check the drivers for everything too - think there are a couple of PCIe cards that came with driver CDROMs.

But yes, I'm beginning to wonder if I should just install Linux and be done with it. I've also a feeling I'm going to have to water cool the two Xeons which will be another fun job, not.
 
Back
Top Bottom