GA-B85-HD3 (rev 2.1) 2K monitor issues when CSM disabled

[arsradu]

Hey guys,

So, yesterday I bought a Dell U2515H monitor (25", 2560x1440 resolution). Before that, I had an old Samsung 943NW (19", 1440x900) monitor. And had no issues with it for more than 7 years.

Now, the reason why I'm contacting you guys is that, with the same setup, but with the new monitor, this time connected via HDMI, I essentially can't boot into the OS. At least not at first.
Moreover, I can't boot into BIOS and I can't access the boot menu to, let's say, boot from a USB drive, or load another HDD/SDD. I can't do pretty much anything. After about 30 seconds, in which the monitor will throw an error about the resolution, the system automatically boots into Windows (where I have native resolution and everything ok).

You can see the error I'm talking about here.



So, after pulling my hair trying to figure out what is wrong with this and why does it work with my old monitor, but not with the new one, I thought I would try upgrading my BIOS. Which I did, successfully, from Windows, using your app. All fine there.

After that, I rebooted my computer and everything was ok (since all the settings have been reset to default)....until I went into BIOS and switched off CSM. After that, even with the newest BIOS, I got the exact same issue.

Please, note that all my operating systems are EFI enabled (the HDD is formatted to support it, so I'm sure there is no issue there). Also, the video card is UEFI enabled (with a UEFI GOP VBIOS), as well.

So, what I'm trying to say is that I don't need (and I don't want) CSM, at all. This creates an ugly/pixelated boot logo and everything just looks awful until I boot into the OS.

Unfortunately, I can't boot otherwise.

Did you guys try this BIOS on this motherboard, with CSM disabled, on higher resolution monitors? Did it work for you? I doubt I'm the only guy with a 2K display who wants a clean, fast, UEFI boot on his computer.

Anyway, I hope you guys have time to read everything I said above, and maybe you have an idea on how to fix this (maybe a beta BIOS?). I don't know.

System specifications below:

1. Motherboard: GA-B85-HD3 (rev 2.1)
2. BIOS version: F4 (same issue with F2)
3. Graphics card: MSi Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 OC, 2GB DDR5, monitor connected via HDMI. Previous monitor was connected via VGA (and had no issues with that, with the same BIOS settings).
4. CPU: Intel i5 4570 @3.2GHz
5. System Memory: Corsair 8GB DDR3 1600MHz, (2x4GB DIMMS in dual-channel)
6. 2HDDs and one boot SSD. No RAID, AHCI mode (I think..?). It's set to Auto.
7. OS: Windows 10 64-bit.
8. PSU: SuperFlower 80+ Gold 650W

Thank you very much for taking the time to go through this post, and I'm looking forward to your replies.

Best regards,
Radu

[dmdilks]

Did you guys try this BIOS on this motherboard, with CSM disabled, on higher resolution monitors? Did it work for you? I doubt I'm the only guy with a 2K display who wants a clean, fast, UEFI boot on his computer.

So, what I'm trying to say is that I don't need (and I don't want) CSM, at all. This creates an ugly/pixelated boot logo and everything just looks awful until I boot into the OS.

Sorry about not having sharp picture but Drivers are not loaded to after the windows logo screen.  Everything runs in VGA dos mode till that point. You never get two monitor to act the same.

You have to step and think about what is happening here. The reason it boots fast and you can't get into the bios. Is because the way it works is VGA, DVI & HDMI in the order. It has to look at everything in that order. You can't change it.

If you are connecting it to a monitor HDMI and it has speaker yes that is fine. But if you are not using the speakers on the monitor you really don't need the HDMI. The only difference between HDMI & DVI is sound.

On the CSM that is still a grey area. I have build many computer using UEFI. All the computers have the CSM enabled. If you enable or disable CSM you really not going to see a real difference. Plus it doesn't matter what OS I'm using either.

I think some of the setting are a joke. I have two computer both X99 and I run both of the with 7 & 10. Both of the them only thing just set is UEFI. I never touch the "other OS" option it is still set to that. They both boot about the same too yes windows 10 does boot faster. 

I have a Z170 computer for sale and it boots in about 15 sec and it has windows 7 on it.

I did, successfully, from Windows, using your app. All fine there.

This is up to you but don't ever update bios from windows to many problem could happen.

[arsradu]

Did you guys try this BIOS on this motherboard, with CSM disabled, on higher resolution monitors? Did it work for you? I doubt I'm the only guy with a 2K display who wants a clean, fast, UEFI boot on his computer.

So, what I'm trying to say is that I don't need (and I don't want) CSM, at all. This creates an ugly/pixelated boot logo and everything just looks awful until I boot into the OS.

Sorry about not having sharp picture but Drivers are not loaded to after the windows logo screen.  Everything runs in VGA dos mode till that point. You never get two monitor to act the same.

You have to step and think about what is happening here. The reason it boots fast and you can't get into the bios. Is because the way it works is VGA, DVI & HDMI in the order. It has to look at everything in that order. You can't change it.

If you are connecting it to a monitor HDMI and it has speaker yes that is fine. But if you are not using the speakers on the monitor you really don't need the HDMI. The only difference between HDMI & DVI is sound.

On the CSM that is still a grey area. I have build many computer using UEFI. All the computers have the CSM enabled. If you enable or disable CSM you really not going to see a real difference. Plus it doesn't matter what OS I'm using either.

I think some of the setting are a joke. I have two computer both X99 and I run both of the with 7 & 10. Both of the them only thing just set is UEFI. I never touch the "other OS" option it is still set to that. They both boot about the same too yes windows 10 does boot faster. 

I have a Z170 computer for sale and it boots in about 15 sec and it has windows 7 on it.

Ok, I understand it boots in that order, and I understand it will look like crap, no matter what I do. Although I've seen other UEFI BIOSes from other motherboard manufacturers. And, if I'm not mistaken, they used to look a lot sharper than this (in UEFI GUI).
But why doesn't it boot, only with CSM disabled, when it booted fine, with the same settings, using the other monitor? I can't even get into BIOS if CSM is disabled. Whereas, with the other monitor, I had no such issue.
And I'm not sure it's because the boot is fast (Fast Boot is not enabled). It just doesn't allow me to go into BIOS or Boot menu. It doesn't even show "press F2 to enter bios" or whatever it says. It doesn't even shot the Gigabyte logo. Nothing. Just that error (by the way, did anyone remove that image from my previous post?), and after a while, boots into Windows...

Also, I can't really use DVI (I've got nothing against DVI or pro HDMI). It's just this monitor doesn't have DVI. So I'll need to go through an adapter (which I don't have at the moment, so I'll need to purchase one, and I'm not sure if I can buy just any adapter), from DVI to HDMI or from DVI to DP. And even so, I'm not sure it will solve the issue. I don't need HDMI for sound, since I'm still using (and liking it) analog sound (5.1 surround sound). So giving up HDMI for DVI won't be a problem. But...do you think that could solve this issue? Cause I'm not sure it will.

I did, successfully, from Windows, using your app. All fine there.

This is up to you but don't ever update bios from windows to many problem could happen.

Well...ok. I've heard this before ("don't use Windows to flash BIOS"). Aside from the fact that I never had any issues when flashing motherboard BIOSes, at least for Gigabyte boards, how else am I supposed to flash it? And with that other method, is there really any guarantee that nothing bad will happen?
Also...if you shouldn't use Windows for that, why is there an app for it?

[dmdilks]

On the CSM I'll have to do some research on that problem. I just leave that one a lone. There is a lot of things I don't touch in the bios. But that is up to each person on they board. The less stuff you change the less problems you will have.

On the adapter you can get any adapter out to do any thing you want.

I always did mine with with a floppy, USB boot-able or with the Qflash with a USB drive. In 30 yrs I have only done it in windows twice.  Yes you can have a problem doing it any way. But in windows that one I say you would have more of a chance something going wrong.

[arsradu]

On the CSM I'll have to do some research on that problem. I just leave that one a lone. There is a lot of things I don't touch in the bios. But that is up to each person on they board. The less stuff you change the less problems you will have.

On the adapter you can get any adapter out to do any thing you want.

I always did mine with with a floppy, USB boot-able or with the Qflash with a USB drive. In 30 yrs I have only done it in windows twice.  Yes you can have a problem doing it any way. But in windows that one I say you would have more of a chance something going wrong.

Ok, man. I'll get an adapter and try the DVI port, as well. Just to rule out a possible issue with that, as well. Or if it works, to get a possible solution to this problem.

I would be really thankful if you could come back with some news on your end, as well. Since you definitely have more knowledge on that side.

Let's do some teamwork here. I'll dig on my side and get the adapter and try it and all that, and if you have any idea or you want me to try anything, in an attempt to fix this issue, please, do tell. I might need to return the monitor (backlight bleeding) and so, I would like to know if I need to look for another monitor with similar specs, for the same money (which, so far, I couldn't find, and also, it wouldn't mean that the new monitor won't have the exact same issue).

And I would hate to switch to another monitor just to have everything working fine. By the way, I did notice a pretty substantial difference in boot time, with and without CSM enabled. Since, if I'm not mistaken, with it disabled, you're allowing UEFI to properly do its job (and a lot faster) without thinking about "legacy support" for an OS that doesn't need it. So...yeah, that's one more reason why I would like this to be fixed somehow.

As for the flashing thing, understood. Will keep that in mind for next time.

Thank you very much for your help so far.

Talk to you soon.

[arsradu]

On the CSM I'll have to do some research on that problem. I just leave that one a lone. There is a lot of things I don't touch in the bios. But that is up to each person on they board. The less stuff you change the less problems you will have.

On the adapter you can get any adapter out to do any thing you want.

I always did mine with with a floppy, USB boot-able or with the Qflash with a USB drive. In 30 yrs I have only done it in windows twice.  Yes you can have a problem doing it any way. But in windows that one I say you would have more of a chance something going wrong.

Hi man,

So, I tried connecting the monitor through a DVI-D to HDMI cable, and I got the exact same issue when CSM was disabled.

Also, I tried a different graphics card (a GTS 450) from a friend of mine, but since that one didn't have a UEFI VBIOS, when switching off CSM from the motherboard's BIOS, it would just go ahead and re-enable it by itself. Which is understandable, I guess. Since the graphics card can't handle UEFI boot.

But in my case, the graphics card has a UEFI BIOS (requested from MSi, since it doesn't come with one by default). And also, it worked perfectly fine with my other monitor. So I'm not sure the issue is related to the graphics card here. But just to be sure, I asked about it on the MSi forum. So let's see what they can tell us about it.

In the meantime, did you manage to do some digging on your end? Any news? Ideas?

Update:
Since this motherboard also supports HDMI, DVI-D and VGA, I thought I would give the internal GPU a try with this monitor and CSM enabled. Just to see if it works at all. So I tried both connecting HDMI to HDMI and DVI to HDMI. Result? Black screen in both cases. No error, no nothing. Just...nothing on the monitor. And yes, the iGPU is enabled in BIOS.

Update 2:
I checked the specs on the internal GPU (Intel Graphics HD 4600) for the CPU I use (i5 4570) and it seems that, although via DVI, the max resolution is 1920x1200, in HDMI, the maximum resolution is actually 4K. So, assuming it wouldn't have worked via HDMI anyway, it should have still worked via HDMI. Sadly, it doesn't. Not that I would really want to use the iGPU with this monitor anyway. But just testing different scenarios here.

[shadowsports]

I think its time for you to raise this with Gigabyte Support.  Here's why:

You've performed a reasonable amount of troubleshooting with two BIOS' and various hardware.

You're OS and install (according to you) is CSM "never" (read disabled) compatible.  CSM is only needed for non UEFI compatible OS' like windows 7 (example), or for non-UEFI compatible GPU BIOS.  Once you move to Windows 8 or 10, and secure boot, you do not need CSM support for non UEFI legacy devices (except graphics which you have confirmed yours does support).

I think you might have something else going on with your display (preboot) which we have seen posts from others here.  I'm talking about the MB's ability to display the BIOS screen at the native resolution of the HDMI 2k, 4k display prior to the OS loading graphics drivers.  Here we have seen that adapters, cables and the FW version on the display having a direct effect on the preboot display ability of POST and BIOS.  I know some of the newer BIOS have a resolution toggle that I have not played with.  I don't know if this holds across reboot, but think it might as I changed it once just to see what it does.  It was a about a year ago 

Beyond that.  Your decreased performance (lower frame rates) in OS during game play just doesn't make sense.  I am not aware of any relation between graphics performance when CSM is enabled or disabled.   The two are just completely unrelated (which I know you are not disputing), hence why I think its time for you to raise this with Gigabyte.  My .02 cents at this point. What do you guys think? 


***One more question.  What resolution are you running the game at?  Is it the same for both connections? VGA and HDMI?  Higher res = lower frame rates...  but this this still doesn't explain effect of CSM.

[arsradu]

I think its time for you to raise this with Gigabyte Support.  Here's why:

You've performed a reasonable amount of troubleshooting with two BIOS' and various hardware.

You're OS and install (according to you) is CSM "never" (read disabled) compatible.  CSM is only needed for non UEFI compatible OS' like windows 7 (example), or for non-UEFI compatible GPU BIOS.  Once you move to Windows 8 or 10, and secure boot, you do not need CSM support for non UEFI legacy devices (except graphics which you have confirmed yours does support).

I think you might have something else going on with your display (preboot) which we have seen posts from others here.  I'm talking about the MB's ability to display the BIOS screen at the native resolution of the HDMI 2k, 4k display prior to the OS loading graphics drivers.  Here we have seen that adapters, cables and the FW version on the display having a direct effect on the preboot display ability of POST and BIOS.  I know some of the newer BIOS have a resolution toggle that I have not played with.  I don't know if this holds across reboot, but think it might as I changed it once just to see what it does.  It was a about a year ago 

Beyond that.  Your decreased performance (lower frame rates) in OS during game play just doesn't make sense.  I am not aware of any relation between graphics performance when CSM is enabled or disabled.   The two are just completely unrelated (which I know you are not disputing), hence why I think its time for you to raise this with Gigabyte.  My .02 cents at this point. What do you guys think? 


***One more question.  What resolution are you running the game at?  Is it the same for both connections? VGA and HDMI?  Higher res = lower frame rates...  but this this still doesn't explain effect of CSM.

Hello,

Thanks a lot for your " 2 cents". Your post is worth a lot more than that, believe me. So thank you very much for taking the time to reply.

Also, just so you know, I did escalate this to Gigabyte Support, a few days ago. I thought I would give that a try, as well. And they did reply with a Beta bios for this motherboard (F5a). Which I flashed. But...unfortunately that didn't change anything. So I replied to them and I'm waiting for an answer.

I'm not sure where did you get the impression that I was having issues in gameplay. Since I don't remember mentioning that anywhere on this thread. Also, I'm not really into gaming. And as you said, it's not related anyway, since that's more of a driver/graphics card issue, rather than a motherboard one. So nope, I don't have issues in games, not that I tried any since I bought this monitor.

Anyway, to answer your question: the previous monitor was a 7 years old 19", 1440x900 resolution Samsung SyncMaster 943NW monitor. It served me well all these years. Still does, since I need it to adjust things in BIOS, when I can't boot anymore (like when I'm connected with the 2K monitor and I have CSM disabled kind of scenario). For this case, booting with the old monitor connected (but not both) works perfectly fine.

So no, not the same resolution, nor the same port. With the old monitor, I was limited to VGA@1440x900. With this one, I've got a bunch of connectivity options (that's what I love about Dell monitors), VGA not included (not that I would really want to connect a 2K monitor via VGA anyway ) and it's connected currently via HDMI@2560x1440.

And yes, I also think we're talking about the inability of the MB BIOS to display anything in preboot at full resolution for higher resolutions (I guess higher than 1080p). I didn't try 1080p since I don't have a 1080p monitor, but full HD has been the standard for a while now, so I guess it's just a problem with newer monitors/higher resolutions.

The monitor (at least this Dell 25" 2560x1400 one) doesn't seem to have resolution adjustment directly on it. I mean built into the on-screen menu. Also, the BIOS I'm using right now doesn't have an option to adjust resolution... If you know one that has that option, do let me know how can I get my hands on it so I can try it out. Or if you know where I should be looking for that resolution toggle, please, let me know so I can check it out.

The F5a that has been provided to me didn't seem to have such an option built-in. But truth be told, I didn't really paid attention to that aspect. I just tested the CSM disabled scenario (option set to Never, as you very well said).

[dmdilks]

The thing is that I might be wrong on this but the 1150 boards don't really support the new 2k & 4k monitors. Plus you Video card doesn't support it either. Plus again I think you really need a card that is UEFI and DX12 the GTX-660 isn't.

Unless you update the bios on the video card. Because most come with the standard bios not UEFI. Still even with the UEFI bios it will still not support the 2k or 4k monitors. That CPU doesn't support the 2k & 4k. That did start till the 1151 CPU's.

If you really want all this to work you will need to update everything. MB, CPU, Memory & Video Card. Plus I didn't really find any this on the CSM with this kind of problem.

[arsradu]

The thing is that I might be wrong on this but the 1150 boards don't really support the new 2k & 4k monitors. Plus you Video card doesn't support it either. Plus again I think you really need a card that is UEFI and DX12 the GTX-660 isn't.

Unless you update the bios on the video card. Because most come with the standard bios not UEFI. Still even with the UEFI bios it will still not support the 2k or 4k monitors. That CPU doesn't support the 2k & 4k. That did start till the 1151 CPU's.

If you really want all this to work you will need to update everything. MB, CPU, Memory & Video Card. Plus I didn't really find any this on the CSM with this kind of problem.

Intel HD 4600 does support 4K via HDMI.
The GTX 650 OC does support 4K via HDMI (it's got HDMI 1.4a).

Also, if it were an issue with the graphics card, I wouldn't have had full resolution once the operating system is loaded. But I do! The problem is only in preboot. I can boot with the default setting for CSM. I can't with it turned off.

[shadowsports]

Apologies frame rate issue was from another post.  Disregard my bad 

[arsradu]

Apologies frame rate issue was from another post.  Disregard my bad 

Thought so. Ok, no problem.

[dmdilks]

So, what I'm trying to say is that I don't need (and I don't want) CSM, at all. This creates an ugly/pixelated boot logo and everything just looks awful until I boot into the OS.

I when back and read the post again thinking maybe I got off track here. If this is the only thing wrong when you boot with the CSM enabled. I'm sorry don't know what to says on that. With out a driver install more likely this will happen.

Plus with the CSM enabled how long does it take to boot? When you disabled CSM do you enabled secure boot?

[arsradu]

So, what I'm trying to say is that I don't need (and I don't want) CSM, at all. This creates an ugly/pixelated boot logo and everything just looks awful until I boot into the OS.

I when back and read the post again thinking maybe I got off track here. If this is the only thing wrong when you boot with the CSM enabled. I'm sorry don't know what to says on that. With out a driver install more likely this will happen.

Plus with the CSM enabled how long does it take to boot? When you disabled CSM do you enabled secure boot?

It takes about 1m:20s to reach the Desktop (booting from an HDD). And yep, secure boot is enabled. It used to take about 30-40 seconds with full UEFI boot.

[dmdilks]

It used to take about 30-40 seconds with full UEFI boot.

That is even before you had your problem with the new monitor is to slow for windows 10. I have a Z77 board with windows 7 that boots faster than that. How do you have the sata controller set?

My laptop with windows 8.1 and now 10 on it boots in 15 sec. I'm sorry but you might not have something not set right just saying. I have to ask when you install windows? Did you just put in the disk and install it.

Does the bios have a boot manager that it boots from in the first boot option?