Z170 Gaming-ITX/ac bricked after Ubuntu install

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   Hi,
I just built a new machine with the Z170 Fatal1ty ITX motherboard. Before installing an O/S I upgraded the BIOS to UEFI 2.0 (released 3/15). All was well and I created a UEFI USB boot disk for Ubuntu 14.04 on another computer and went to install Ubuntu. My goal is to have a M.2 nvme Samsung 950 PRO be just Ubuntu with a UEFI boot. To accomplish this, I needed the USB to boot in UEFI so I went into the UEFI settings and disabled CSM compatibility mode and moved the "UEFI boot" higher priority than the regular USB boot of the Ubuntu install disk. What I mean is the UEFI showed two boot options, one UEFI and one legacy, and I chose UEFI. This seemed to work, and when I rebooted I saw the correct looking GRUB bootloader that suggests UEFI and I was able to successfully partition the 950 nvme device and put a EFI system partition/etc. The install went perfect with the networking all working/etc. Everything was good to go. However, once I rebooted, it just went to a black screen. I rebooted, and tried to enter the UEFI (saw the ASrock text on the screen), but it restarted again when I hit f2. I tried again and same thing. Then I powered down, and back up, and nothing happened. Not even a fan turns on. No beeps from the speaker (I attached one to the motherboard). I either had an inconveniently timed hardware failure, or the UEFI is somehow corrupt. Can it be that corrupt to prevent even a fan from turning on? I tried the CMOS reset button numerous times. I now removed the battery and I'm praying that somehow brings it back to life. 

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billmag Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 22 Mar 2016 Status: Offline Points: 8	Post Options Post Reply Quote billmag Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: Z170 Gaming-ITX/ac bricked after Ubuntu install Posted: 22 Mar 2016 at 9:36am
	Hi, I just built a new machine with the Z170 Fatal1ty ITX motherboard. Before installing an O/S I upgraded the BIOS to UEFI 2.0 (released 3/15). All was well and I created a UEFI USB boot disk for Ubuntu 14.04 on another computer and went to install Ubuntu. My goal is to have a M.2 nvme Samsung 950 PRO be just Ubuntu with a UEFI boot. To accomplish this, I needed the USB to boot in UEFI so I went into the UEFI settings and disabled CSM compatibility mode and moved the "UEFI boot" higher priority than the regular USB boot of the Ubuntu install disk. What I mean is the UEFI showed two boot options, one UEFI and one legacy, and I chose UEFI. This seemed to work, and when I rebooted I saw the correct looking GRUB bootloader that suggests UEFI and I was able to successfully partition the 950 nvme device and put a EFI system partition/etc. The install went perfect with the networking all working/etc. Everything was good to go. However, once I rebooted, it just went to a black screen. I rebooted, and tried to enter the UEFI (saw the ASrock text on the screen), but it restarted again when I hit f2. I tried again and same thing. Then I powered down, and back up, and nothing happened. Not even a fan turns on. No beeps from the speaker (I attached one to the motherboard). I either had an inconveniently timed hardware failure, or the UEFI is somehow corrupt. Can it be that corrupt to prevent even a fan from turning on? I tried the CMOS reset button numerous times. I now removed the battery and I'm praying that somehow brings it back to life.

billmag Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 22 Mar 2016 Status: Offline Points: 8	Post Options Post Reply Quote billmag Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 22 Mar 2016 at 11:34am
	Pulling the CMOS battery for 40 minutes brought it back to life. But I still cannot boot Ubuntu reliably. I wonder if the latest 14.04 LTS release does not have new enough UEFI drivers, or something.

parsec Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Moderator Group Joined: 04 May 2015 Location: USA Status: Offline Points: 4996	Post Options Post Reply Quote parsec Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 22 Mar 2016 at 12:46pm
	I'm glad the board and PC are running again. Why that happened is unknown to me. I'm not a Ubuntu person, but your UEFI installation description seems perfect. Do you know if the version of Ubuntu you are using has a built in NVMe driver? I imagine it must or the 950 would not function as far as I know. Or if the NVMe driver in Ubuntu does not work well with the 950 Pro? The Window native NVMe driver is known to have write performance issues with the 950 Pro, but is not known to caused instability. Samsung supplies an NVMe driver, but it is only available from Samsung with a Windows type installation program. Scroll down on this page to find that driver: http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisite/SSD/global/html/support/downloads.html Apparently you can find the driver files with an Internet search, that have been extracted from the Samsung Windows installation program, but the drivers are Windows type driver files that are likely worthless to you. I doubt I need to tell you Samsung does not supply any non-Windows type drivers or software for their SSDs. The EFI compatible Option ROM in the UEFI is supplied by Intel, but if it works with Ubuntu, I have no idea. NVMe SSDs cannot boot a legacy OS installation, and minimally must use the EFI boot loader. Another typical UEFI OS problem is the video driver not being GOP compliant. I have no idea what your video source is, but the Intel integrated graphics has a GOP compatible VBIOS that is part of your board's UEFI/BIOS file. Intel does provide a link to Linux compatible video drivers for their integrated graphics... which I can't find now, of course...


billmag Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 22 Mar 2016 Status: Offline Points: 8	Post Options Post Reply Quote billmag Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 23 Mar 2016 at 12:03am
	Thanks. I think the latest Linux issue is due to the kernel version. Ubuntu 14.04.4 comes with Linux Kernel 4.2, which has Skylake support but not a proper driver for the onboard graphics (Intel 530). By the way for others following the thread - my computer wasn't actually rebooting when it loaded Linux, it just stops sending video and my monitor shows no connection which looks like a reboot.. But I think it is the same "black screen" people report with this configuration. It doesn't reboot until I press ctrl-alt-del. I can successfully get into GRUB if I hold esc during boot, so I will try modifying the boot parameters as described below: ---- For linux kernels older than 4.3.x, i915.preliminary_hw_support=1 must be added to your boot parameters for the driver to work on the new Intel Skylake (6th gen.) GPUs. On a fully updated system running kernel 4.3.x and up, this step is unneccessary. --- NOTE - This doesn't explain what corrupted the UEFI on the Asrock board when I first booted, as this current problem seems unrelated and is just a Linux hardware issue. After I removed the battery I seem to be able to successfully boot and get into the BIOS reliably, it just can't boot Linux due to the graphics driver issue. I think/hope.

billmag Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 22 Mar 2016 Status: Offline Points: 8	Post Options Post Reply Quote billmag Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 23 Mar 2016 at 8:12am
	Update for anyone that might stumble onto this thread... The motherboard is doing fine no more glitches. I finally got Ubuntu 14.04.4 booting reliably by modifying the boot line and replacing "quiet splash" with "nomodeset i915.preliminary_hw_support=1". If you google these terms there are alot of explanations about what they do. This is with kernel 4.2. I believe the Intel drivers for the onboard video are fixed in kernel 4.4.x. I plan to move to Ubuntu 16.04 LTS when it is released in a month and that should have better hardware support.

Xaltar Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Moderator Group Joined: 16 May 2015 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 25073	Post Options Post Reply Quote Xaltar Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 23 Mar 2016 at 2:07pm
	Thanks for posting back Billmag, Linux is not officially supported by ASRock so I am sure your posts will prove useful to others in the community using Linux