Having 'increasing' probs with my 8-core AMD destktop.
The board is an asus-xhair-IV

Boot often doesn't even begin and pops the subject
error message which includes "or F.. to load defaults"
and words of this nature.

CPU temps never above 50c.

BIOS should come up by touching "Del" but it takes a dozen
attempts for that to work with my new usb gaming keyboard.

This morning bios just would not detect 2 of my data drives
in sata slots 3 & 4 (using a 5-bay rack with 1-4 sata reserved).

After I don't know how many reboots bios still wasn't detecting
but "fdisk -l" finally picked one of them up.

On the last boot bios detected it too, got it mounted, and
it's presently taking 1tb of backups.

I would just like some ballpark hunches to start with, what
do symptoms like this suggest? Mobo, rack, bios?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2020-10-22 11:40, KenW wrote:

On Thu, 22 Oct 2020 10:07:15 -0400, bad sector <forgetski@postit_INVALID_.gov> wrote:

Having 'increasing' probs with my 8-core AMD destktop.
The board is an asus-xhair-IV

Boot often doesn't even begin and pops the subject
error message which includes "or F.. to load defaults"
and words of this nature.

CPU temps never above 50c.

BIOS should come up by touching "Del" but it takes a dozen
attempts for that to work with my new usb gaming keyboard.

This morning bios just would not detect 2 of my data drives
in sata slots 3 & 4 (using a 5-bay rack with 1-4 sata reserved).

After I don't know how many reboots bios still wasn't detecting
but "fdisk -l" finally picked one of them up.

On the last boot bios detected it too, got it mounted, and
it's presently taking 1tb of backups.

I would just like some ballpark hunches to start with, what
do symptoms like this suggest? Mobo, rack, bios?

Battery cr-2032 could be going bad (low voltage)

KenW

thanks, I forgot them buggers are not rechargeable!

gonna check it out

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Thu, 22 Oct 2020 10:07:15 -0400, bad sector
<forgetski@postit_INVALID_.gov> wrote:

Having 'increasing' probs with my 8-core AMD destktop.
The board is an asus-xhair-IV

Boot often doesn't even begin and pops the subject
error message which includes "or F.. to load defaults"
and words of this nature.

CPU temps never above 50c.

BIOS should come up by touching "Del" but it takes a dozen
attempts for that to work with my new usb gaming keyboard.

This morning bios just would not detect 2 of my data drives
in sata slots 3 & 4 (using a 5-bay rack with 1-4 sata reserved).

After I don't know how many reboots bios still wasn't detecting
but "fdisk -l" finally picked one of them up.

On the last boot bios detected it too, got it mounted, and
it's presently taking 1tb of backups.

I would just like some ballpark hunches to start with, what
do symptoms like this suggest? Mobo, rack, bios?

Battery cr-2032 could be going bad (low voltage)


KenW

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

KenW wrote:

On Thu, 22 Oct 2020 10:07:15 -0400, bad sector <forgetski@postit_INVALID_.gov> wrote:

Having 'increasing' probs with my 8-core AMD destktop.
The board is an asus-xhair-IV

Boot often doesn't even begin and pops the subject
error message which includes "or F.. to load defaults"
and words of this nature.

CPU temps never above 50c.

BIOS should come up by touching "Del" but it takes a dozen
attempts for that to work with my new usb gaming keyboard.

This morning bios just would not detect 2 of my data drives
in sata slots 3 & 4 (using a 5-bay rack with 1-4 sata reserved).

After I don't know how many reboots bios still wasn't detecting
but "fdisk -l" finally picked one of them up.

On the last boot bios detected it too, got it mounted, and
it's presently taking 1tb of backups.

I would just like some ballpark hunches to start with, what
do symptoms like this suggest? Mobo, rack, bios?

Battery cr-2032 could be going bad (low voltage)

KenW

Making note of any special settings, before replacement.
As you'd have to put back the settings afterwards.

Sometimes taking digital camera pictures of the BIOS
screen in advance, is a good enough method.

Some Asus motherboards are famous for their bad
defaults choices in the BIOS, requiring things to be
corrected over and over again.

Later Asus boards have a "profile manager" and you can
load a saved profile after a battery replacement. My
newest system has that feature, and I have two profiles
saved in it. The interface in the BIOS screen for that,
is less than intuitive (you can't tell what you're
supposed to do).

If you have a multimeter, you can take a voltage
reading off the top of the CR2032, using any I/O mounting
screw as an alligator-clip ground. If 2.3V or less, replace.
When brand new, they can be in the 3.1V range.

If you unplug a computer with brand new battery, and
leave it in the junk room, the battery lasts for three years.

Paul

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

bad sector <forgetski@postit_INVALID_.gov> wrote:

Having 'increasing' probs with my 8-core AMD destktop.
The board is an asus-xhair-IV

/
No, it's "Crosshair" --- but which model is unspecified.

If you want to severely narrow down the responses to only those that
have this product to know you meant crosshair instead of x then don't
use abbreviations that would be uncertain to other users. In order for
other users (not of this particular motherboard) to be able to lookup
the product to know what it is to help you, don't make them guess as to
what you have.

From what I found in searches, the product's name could be:

ASUS Crosshair IV Formula
or
ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme

Didn't know which to pick, so I first picked the Formula product. That
was introduced around April 2010. Then I checked on the Extreme model
which looks like it came out around November 2010. From forum posts,
looks like both were discontinued around 2014 (replaced by Rampage).
You didn't say how old is whichever one that you have. At 10 years old,
that is way too long for the CMOS battery. Even at 6 years, CMOS
batteries go weak or die by then. I replace mine about every 3-4 years.

During boot, the settings from the battery-powered CMOS table are used,
if usable, but if corrupt then the BIOS will try to retrieve the
defaults stored in the EEPROM chip(s).

It's a cheap troubleshooting step for an old computer exhibiting boot
problems: buy a CR-2032 coin cell battery, and replace the old and
likely dead one in the computer on the motherboard. Since both the
Formula and Extreme models are motherboards for desktop PCs, replacing
the CMOS battery is easy. Laptops are a bitch.

Boot often doesn't even begin and pops the subject
error message which includes "or F.. to load defaults"
and words of this nature.

The CMOS battery is probably dead. It cannot maintain the contents of
the CMOS table, so the contents of that table are corrupt or invalid
forcing the BIOS to load the defaults from the EEPROMs. Replace the
CMOS battery, reset the BIOS (use a jumper to short the 2-pin header on
the motherboard) to ensure the defaults get loaded into the CMOS table,
and retest.

I would just like some ballpark hunches to start with, what
do symptoms like this suggest? Mobo, rack, bios?

Most likely needs a new CR-2032 battery. I get a bunch of them at a
time for cheap at eBay, but make sure you aren't buying counterfeits
there. Ask the seller if the pic they show in their auction is of the
product, or a stock photo. If a pic of the actual product for sale,
often the packaging will indicate authentic or counterfeit (and there
are sites showing you pics of authentic vs counterfeit packaging). I
have lots of devices using the CR-2032 batteries, so I buy a bunch to
replace them all or have spares on hand when they die off. At Walmart,
it'll cost more (~$5), but you only need the 1 for the mobo for another
4 to 6 years before needing to replace it again. I usually stick with
Sony for the coin cell batteries.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2020-10-22 12:53, Paul wrote:

Sometimes taking digital camera pictures of the BIOS screen in
advance, is a good enough method.

Some Asus motherboards are famous for their bad defaults choices in
the BIOS, requiring things to be corrected over and over again.

new battery

I do take pictures of the monitor when hot
onto something but for now I'm still poking
around in the dark and there seem to be multiple
issues involved

For starters i bought this DURGOD usb gaming keyboard
and 2 out of 10 boots I have to cycle it into another
usb port or I don't get to see BIOS with 'Del' nor get
to select anything from the frozen boot menu. Another
solution is to immediately plug in my old keyboard to
bypass this issue. I don't know if it's a keyboard
or a mobo fault.

Another problem might revolve around the sata
rack with mobile drawers for the drives. The last
dozen or so attempts I could not get any drive
plugged into the #4 slot detected. Suspecting the
drive that usually goes in there I plugged it in bybassing
the rack and then it got detected although I also
wondered if its 22,000 hours could be a factor.
When I initially posted this drive was taking a backup,
now recognised OK on a direct sata cable fdisk
showed it as a dos drive with no partition. Gdisk
showed the gpt table and the only partition but
on mounting it it was empty. When I plug this
drive into its usual #4 slot it doesn't get detected,
if I plug it into the #3 swapping with the one in there
then neither #3 nor #4 ger detected. A lot of this is
way over my head.

The boot drive is a brand new ssd and booting one
of the installations on it I got a filesystem error,
yet fsck from another installation proved it 'clean'.
This was a Suse-Leap partition, and subsequent
boots on it went without any problems.

So I'm like exhausted for right but will next connect
all drives directly bypassing the mobile tray setup
and using the old keyboard.

Later :)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2020-10-22 15:41, VanguardLH wrote:

bad sector <forgetski@postit_INVALID_.gov> wrote:

Having 'increasing' probs with my 8-core AMD destktop.
The board is an asus-xhair-IV

/
No, it's "Crosshair" --- but which model is unspecified.

If you want to severely narrow down the responses to only those that
have this product to know you meant crosshair instead of x then don't
use abbreviations that would be uncertain to other users. In order for
other users (not of this particular motherboard) to be able to lookup
the product to know what it is to help you, don't make them guess as to
what you have.

Noted, my sincere apologies.

From what I found in searches, the product's name could be:

ASUS Crosshair IV Formula
or
ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme

it's Crosshair IV Formula

The CMOS battery is probably dead. It cannot maintain the contents of
the CMOS table, so the contents of that table are corrupt or invalid
forcing the BIOS to load the defaults from the EEPROMs. Replace the
CMOS battery, reset the BIOS (use a jumper to short the 2-pin header on
the motherboard) to ensure the defaults get loaded into the CMOS table,
and retest.

I put a new one in it, no cigar, same problems

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

bad sector wrote:

On 2020-10-22 12:53, Paul wrote:

Sometimes taking digital camera pictures of the BIOS screen in
advance, is a good enough method.

Some Asus motherboards are famous for their bad defaults choices in
the BIOS, requiring things to be corrected over and over again.

new battery

I do take pictures of the monitor when hot
onto something but for now I'm still poking
around in the dark and there seem to be multiple
issues involved

For starters i bought this DURGOD usb gaming keyboard
and 2 out of 10 boots I have to cycle it into another
usb port or I don't get to see BIOS with 'Del' nor get
to select anything from the frozen boot menu. Another
solution is to immediately plug in my old keyboard to
bypass this issue. I don't know if it's a keyboard
or a mobo fault.

Another problem might revolve around the sata
rack with mobile drawers for the drives. The last
dozen or so attempts I could not get any drive
plugged into the #4 slot detected. Suspecting the
drive that usually goes in there I plugged it in bybassing
the rack and then it got detected although I also
wondered if its 22,000 hours could be a factor.
When I initially posted this drive was taking a backup,
now recognised OK on a direct sata cable fdisk
showed it as a dos drive with no partition. Gdisk
showed the gpt table and the only partition but
on mounting it it was empty. When I plug this
drive into its usual #4 slot it doesn't get detected,
if I plug it into the #3 swapping with the one in there
then neither #3 nor #4 ger detected. A lot of this is
way over my head.

The boot drive is a brand new ssd and booting one
of the installations on it I got a filesystem error,
yet fsck from another installation proved it 'clean'.
This was a Suse-Leap partition, and subsequent
boots on it went without any problems.

So I'm like exhausted for right but will next connect
all drives directly bypassing the mobile tray setup
and using the old keyboard.

Later :)

I have had a Western Digital drive damage a SATA port
on my Southbridge. My Typing Machine only has five working
Southbridge SATA ports at the moment. The sixth port is
dead. The hard drive that did this is "retired" and is
not used as a spare for OS installs either.

The SATA interface has a limit on common mode voltage
range. I don't know if a SATA driver on one hardware,
can manage to create enough voltage to damage the
receiver interface on a second device. It really
should not be able to do that. Yet... I have a dead
port.

Paul

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

bad sector <forgetski@postit_INVALID_.gov> wrote:

BIOS should come up by touching "Del" but it takes a dozen
attempts for that to work with my new usb gaming keyboard.

USB is a polled interface. PS/2 is an interrupt-driven interface. If
the computer gets super busy, the USB device may not get its chance at
the next polling interval, and why USB keyboards can lag in video games compared to PS/2 keyboards. Just because a product says "gamer" in its
product name doesn't mean it really qualifies for that type of use.

Did the keyboard come with a USB-to-PS/2 adapter? If so, the keyboard
has the logic to switch between the different hardware protocols. If
your computer has a PS/2 port then I'd use that for the keyboard.
Gamers prefer PS/2 to USB because there is less delay or lag on
keypresses with PS/2, and PS/2 supports more concurrent keypresses than
USB. That's why some gamer mobos still come with a PS/2 port. Also, no
reason to toss the availability of a USB port if a PS/2 port is
available.

I found:

https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/CROSSHAIR_IV_FORMULA/specifications/

where it mentions one PS/2 port (for keyboard). If your USB gaming
keyboard came with a PS/2 adapter then it supports both USB and PS/2
hardware protocols (internal logic has it switch between them). If the keyboard did not include a PS/2 adapter, it is a USB-only keyboard. You
cannot simply plug a USB-only keyboard into a PS/2 adapter since the
USB-only keyboard doesn't support the PS/2 hardware protocol. You can
get an active hub that converts from USB to PS/2 to let you connect a
USB-only keyboard to a PS/2 port, but those are more costly than just
getting a USB+PS/2 or PS/2 keyboard.

It has been a long time since I've seen this, but some old BIOSes must
be configured in their settings to "Support legacy devices" which
includes the PS/2 ports. If you see that setting in the BIOS then
enable it should you decide to get a PS/2 keyboard or get a USB+PS/2
keyboard and use the USB-to-PS/2 adapter.

Which USB "gamer" keyboard do you have?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

bad sector <forgetski@postit_INVALID_.gov> wrote:

After I don't know how many reboots bios still wasn't detecting
but "fdisk -l" finally picked one of them up.

fdisk? I haven't see that available since the ancient MS/IBM-DOS days,
or in Linux. What OS are you running on this computer?

I'm not sure the OS is important since the problems you describe are
accessing the BIOS or its POST screen not listing all your devices. The
POST screen presents its findings before any OS gets loaded.

Do you even see the POST screen? Or is the BIOS configured to display
some ad banner, like "Hey, you're using ASUS"? I'd get rid of any ad
banner display during boot up, and have the BIOS show its POST screen.
The ad banner is worthless. The POST screen shows valuable information.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2020-10-22 19:41, VanguardLH wrote:

bad sector <forgetski@postit_INVALID_.gov> wrote:

BIOS should come up by touching "Del" but it takes a dozen
attempts for that to work with my new usb gaming keyboard.

USB is a polled interface. PS/2 is an interrupt-driven interface. If
the computer gets super busy, the USB device may not get its chance at
the next polling interval, and why USB keyboards can lag in video games compared to PS/2 keyboards. Just because a product says "gamer" in its product name doesn't mean it really qualifies for that type of use.

Did the keyboard come with a USB-to-PS/2 adapter? If so, the keyboard
has the logic to switch between the different hardware protocols. If
your computer has a PS/2 port then I'd use that for the keyboard.
Gamers prefer PS/2 to USB because there is less delay or lag on
keypresses with PS/2, and PS/2 supports more concurrent keypresses than
USB. That's why some gamer mobos still come with a PS/2 port. Also, no reason to toss the availability of a USB port if a PS/2 port is
available.

I found:

https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/CROSSHAIR_IV_FORMULA/specifications/

where it mentions one PS/2 port (for keyboard). If your USB gaming
keyboard came with a PS/2 adapter then it supports both USB and PS/2
hardware protocols (internal logic has it switch between them). If the keyboard did not include a PS/2 adapter, it is a USB-only keyboard. You cannot simply plug a USB-only keyboard into a PS/2 adapter since the
USB-only keyboard doesn't support the PS/2 hardware protocol. You can
get an active hub that converts from USB to PS/2 to let you connect a USB-only keyboard to a PS/2 port, but those are more costly than just
getting a USB+PS/2 or PS/2 keyboard.

It has been a long time since I've seen this, but some old BIOSes must
be configured in their settings to "Support legacy devices" which
includes the PS/2 ports. If you see that setting in the BIOS then
enable it should you decide to get a PS/2 keyboard or get a USB+PS/2
keyboard and use the USB-to-PS/2 adapter.

Which USB "gamer" keyboard do you have?

Thanks for the in-depth report. The keyboard is DURGOD all-usb
gaming one that cost me about 5 times a cheapo and I would
have been better off with the cheapo. I can duplicate the problem
at will and either it or the mobo is a lemmon. The problem seems
to be at its worse early in the boot, like when I would wanna hit
"Del" to get to the bios, or very soon after that to arrow-key my
way to a boot menu entry. The problem ceases to exist if I launch
with the cheapo and then optionally swap in the DURGOD. There is
NO BOUBT, for some reason the cheapo does not have a detection
issue the DURGOD does. It could be a matter of the latter needing
just a little more time to be detected, beats me :)

Anyway that's anoter part of the mystery down for a total of two

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2020-10-22 19:40, Paul wrote:

bad sector wrote:

On 2020-10-22 12:53, Paul wrote:

Sometimes taking digital camera pictures of the BIOS screen in
advance, is a good enough method.


Some Asus motherboards are famous for their bad defaults choices
in the BIOS, requiring things to be corrected over and over
again.

new battery

I do take pictures of the monitor when hot

onto something but for now I'm still poking around in the dark and
there seem to be multiple

issues involved


For starters i bought this DURGOD usb gaming keyboard

and 2 out of 10 boots I have to cycle it into another usb port or I
don't get to see BIOS with 'Del' nor get to select anything from
the frozen boot menu. Another solution is to immediately plug in my
old keyboard to bypass this issue. I don't know if it's a keyboard


or a mobo fault.

Another problem might revolve around the sata

rack with mobile drawers for the drives. The last

dozen or so attempts I could not get any drive plugged into the #4
slot detected. Suspecting the drive that usually goes in there I
plugged it in bybassing the rack and then it got detected although
I also wondered if its 22,000 hours could be a factor. When I
initially posted this drive was taking a backup, now recognised OK
on a direct sata cable fdisk showed it as a dos drive with no
partition. Gdisk showed the gpt table and the only partition but

on mounting it it was empty. When I plug this drive into its usual
#4 slot it doesn't get detected, if I plug it into the #3 swapping
with the one in there then neither #3 nor #4 ger detected. A lot
of this is way over my head.


The boot drive is a brand new ssd and booting one of the
installations on it I got a filesystem error, yet fsck from another
installation proved it 'clean'.

This was a Suse-Leap partition, and subsequent

boots on it went without any problems.

So I'm like exhausted for right but will next connect all drives
directly bypassing the mobile tray setup and using the old
keyboard.

Later :)

I have had a Western Digital drive damage a SATA port on my
Southbridge. My Typing Machine only has five working Southbridge SATA
ports at the moment. The sixth port is dead. The hard drive that did
this is "retired" and is not used as a spare for OS installs
either.

The SATA interface has a limit on common mode voltage range. I don't
know if a SATA driver on one hardware, can manage to create enough
voltage to damage the

receiver interface on a second device. It really should not be able
to do that. Yet... I have a dead port.

While trying to connect the sata cable into it I broke
the high-time drive's SATA connector... I guess the
gods spared me a lot of useless grief minutes before
the debate :)

With this drive now out of it, I placed it into slot #4
leaving #3 empty, bios picked it up no problem so that
clears the sata circuit including the disk rack

I still get the 'press 4' stuff and complaints about
no overclocking, I answer the keyboard issue in
another answer, plus I have a strictly OS issue
that I will take to the suse group. Soooooo, it
looks like still a multiple-cause issue with ONE culprit
down, the old WD spinner.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2020-10-22 19:45, VanguardLH wrote:

bad sector <forgetski@postit_INVALID_.gov> wrote:

After I don't know how many reboots bios still wasn't detecting
but "fdisk -l" finally picked one of them up.

fdisk? I haven't see that available since the ancient MS/IBM-DOS days,
or in Linux. What OS are you running on this computer?

I'm just starting out with ssd's and gdisk after using fdisk like
for 30 years. It's more gdisk now, especially if I partition, but
for just the odd "fsdisk -l" I still forget myself at times :)

OS-wise its Suse Leap, Suse Tumbleweed, morphing over to
systemd-free Artix, Devuan and Slackware while on ocasion
runing w7 in a vBox on either of the above.

I'm not sure the OS is important since the problems you describe are accessing the BIOS or its POST screen not listing all your devices. The
POST screen presents its findings before any OS gets loaded.

Do you even see the POST screen? Or is the BIOS configured to display
some ad banner, like "Hey, you're using ASUS"? I'd get rid of any ad
banner display during boot up, and have the BIOS show its POST screen.
The ad banner is worthless. The POST screen shows valuable information.

I can config the bios no problem, usually nix all the
useless eye-candy. My problems with the bios were
that "A" hitting 'Del' with the new keyboard was a waste
of time and "B" one of my drives was probably done for.

There's one question left here before being certain,
If you have a bad drive plugged into slot 3 that don't
get recognised, will that prevent a good drive in slot 4
from being recognised. This bit is a mystery, I was
getting that impression though. Now I'll never know
cause I coincidentally killed the 'bad' drive (see other
answer to Paul).

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

bad sector <forgetski@postit_INVALID_.gov> wrote:

The keyboard is DURGOD all-usb gaming one ...

https://www.newegg.com/Gaming-Keyboards/BrandSubCat/ID-198575-3523

That lists several models of Durgod. Since Newegg doesn't show a PS/2
filter for that list, looks like none of them can be moved to a PS/2
port on the computer.

They ship from China, not from Newegg (so you cannot choose Newegg as
the seller to deal with them for returns/refunds). Newegg estimates
shipping time from 10 to 32 days. Expect more like 45 days to get past
Chinese customs. Apparently the seller does not have regional
warehouses in which they stock their wares to have them on hand for
shipping in that region (and outside of China since they already went
through customs to the regional warehouses). They don't even need their
own warehouse. There are companies that provide warehousing service.
In fact, I think the City of Industry, CA is nothing but warehouses.
I've dealt with other sellers where some common city is used for
regional warehousing by multiple companies.

... that cost me about 5 times a cheapo and I would have been better
off with the cheapo. I can duplicate the problem at will and either
it or the mobo is a lemmon. The problem seems to be at its worse
early in the boot, like when I would wanna hit "Del" to get to the
bios, or very soon after that to arrow-key my way to a boot menu
entry. The problem ceases to exist if I launch with the cheapo and
then optionally swap in the DURGOD. There is NO BOUBT, for some
reason the cheapo does not have a detection issue the DURGOD does. It
could be a matter of the latter needing just a little more time to be detected, beats me :)

When did you buy the gamer keyboard? Maybe it's short enough that you
can return it as nonfunctional (flaky on boot). Newegg often lists the warranty on the products sold by or through them, but not for Durgod. I
went to durgod.com, but found nothing there about a warranty period.

When the mobo is booted, the CPU gets reset and also sends out a reset
to all the hardware. That is to initialize all hardware to a known good
state. When you cold boot (not warm boot) the computer, do the LEDs on
the keyboard blink to indicate it got the reset signal?

Presumably you have already tried a different USB port.

Try blasting canned air between the keys. Then turn over the keyboard
(so the keys are down), hold one end with one hand, and slap the other
end on the keys. Repeat with the other hand on the other end of the turned-over keyboard to slap with your other hand. This is to shake out
any debris inside the keyboard which could prevent the keys from making
full strokes. For each key, press it slowly and release slowly. Make
sure each goes through a full stroke with no resistance other than the mechanical latch that generates the click.

Since the cheap USB-only keyboard does not inflict you with the same
defects as the expensive USB-only gamer keyboard, well, you've narrowed
the problem source to the USB-only gamer keyboard. Go back to using the
cheap keyboard, and either return the gamer keyboard for a refund,
return it for warranty replacement, or use as an expensive doorstop.

cheap USB-only keyboard: no problem.
gamer USB-only keyboard: problem exists.

Problem resolved. The gamer keyboard is farked.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

bad sector <forgetski@postit_INVALID_.gov> wrote:

Now I'll never know cause I coincidentally killed the 'bad' drive (see
other answer to Paul).

I did not see KenW's subthread where Paul replied. KenW doesn't want
his posts to be seen.

<Rant>

KenW uses the "X-No-Archive: yes" header to request that hist posts not
get archived. He doesn't think his post is important enough to stick
around. Google has their expiration on such marked articles of 6 days.
For me, the expiration is instantaneously. The user of that header does
not get to specify the retention time used by any NNTP server, web-based
forum linked to Usenet, or by anyone else.

There are historic reasons for not wanting an article to get archived indefinitely, but nowadays it is just rude in that it punches holes in a discussion. If you don't want what you say in public to become public
record then don't speak/post in public. Duh!

Besides, asking that a post not stay archived at Google Groups has
absolutely no effect at other sites that still archive all the articles,
like at Howard Knight (http://al.howardknight.net/), or any web-based
forums that use an HTTP-to-NNTP gateway to link their web-based forum
(HTTP) to Usenet (NNTP). Nor does KenW have control over quoting of his content in replies. Back when I used to not hide those posts, I would
not just quote the parent post trying to hide, but I also included all
its headers, so other users could see them. I would unhide the poster
trying to hide. X-No-Archive has become a useless header whose use is
rude in a public communication venue.

That header says a poster doesn't want their article to stick around. I
comply with their wish to vaporize their post by doing so immediately.
KenW doesn't want his posts to be seen, so I don't see them, or any
replies to them in a subthread. He gets exactly what he asked for from
me: no visibility. Entirely his choice to [try to] get his posts to
disappear, but not his choice on when his posts disappear. Google's
retention is 6 days. Mine is zero.

</Rant>

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2020-10-22 22:24, VanguardLH wrote:

bad sector <forgetski@postit_INVALID_.gov> wrote:

The keyboard is DURGOD all-usb gaming one ...

https://www.newegg.com/Gaming-Keyboards/BrandSubCat/ID-198575-3523

That lists several models of Durgod. Since Newegg doesn't show a PS/2
filter for that list, looks like none of them can be moved to a PS/2
port on the computer.

It's a Durgod Taurus k-320 (made in China), and
the reason I got it was that

- my old one broke a support
- I was up to here with num locks being ON by default
so I wanted a keyboard with NO numpad :)

It's a *good heavy mechanical* keyboard but
something in it makes it slow to be recognised.

As I said it's a problem ONLY in the very early
stages of boot, and

*I just realise now what that means*

..it's slow ONLY before the OS ignores the BIOS
and takes over, but then it's slow to the point of
sometimes being dead.

I bought it at amazon, thing is that living out
in the sticks sending anything back involves
prohibitive shipping costs, nor do I really wanna
get riod of it ALTHOUGH the next one might be
a Ps2, or I might try it with a generic Ps2 adapter?

When the mobo is booted, the CPU gets reset and also sends out a reset
to all the hardware. That is to initialize all hardware to a known good state. When you cold boot (not warm boot) the computer, do the LEDs on
the keyboard blink to indicate it got the reset signal?

Presumably you have already tried a different USB port.

I've seen the led's flash, and yeh, I tried different usb
ports a trick which BTW works when for example
keys have no effect when a boot menu shows up (that
too is before OS takeover BTW). When that happens I
can change port or just reseat in the same port for
it to get picked up. Problem is I cannot do that fast
enough to get 'Del' in for a BIOS edit

cheap USB-only keyboard: no problem.
gamer USB-only keyboard: problem exists.

Problem resolved. The gamer keyboard is farked.

Well, it _is_ a problem during early boot, the rest
of the problem is still waiting.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2020-10-22 22:44, VanguardLH wrote:

bad sector <forgetski@postit_INVALID_.gov> wrote:

Now I'll never know cause I coincidentally killed the 'bad' drive (see
other answer to Paul).

I did not see KenW's subthread where Paul replied. KenW doesn't want
his posts to be seen.

<Rant>

KenW uses the "X-No-Archive: yes" header to request that hist posts not
get archived. He doesn't think his post is important enough to stick
around. Google has their expiration on such marked articles of 6 days.
For me, the expiration is instantaneously. The user of that header does
not get to specify the retention time used by any NNTP server, web-based forum linked to Usenet, or by anyone else.

There are historic reasons for not wanting an article to get archived indefinitely, but nowadays it is just rude in that it punches holes in a discussion. If you don't want what you say in public to become public
record then don't speak/post in public. Duh!

Besides, asking that a post not stay archived at Google Groups has
absolutely no effect at other sites that still archive all the articles,
like at Howard Knight (http://al.howardknight.net/), or any web-based
forums that use an HTTP-to-NNTP gateway to link their web-based forum
(HTTP) to Usenet (NNTP). Nor does KenW have control over quoting of his content in replies. Back when I used to not hide those posts, I would
not just quote the parent post trying to hide, but I also included all
its headers, so other users could see them. I would unhide the poster
trying to hide. X-No-Archive has become a useless header whose use is
rude in a public communication venue.

That header says a poster doesn't want their article to stick around. I comply with their wish to vaporize their post by doing so immediately.
KenW doesn't want his posts to be seen, so I don't see them, or any
replies to them in a subthread. He gets exactly what he asked for from
me: no visibility. Entirely his choice to [try to] get his posts to disappear, but not his choice on when his posts disappear. Google's retention is 6 days. Mine is zero.

</Rant>

:)))

this don't help me any though, been there before.
I post a problem and thanks to many good souls
trying to help soon find myself being the only indian
with 20 chiefs dancing around me gettin' me dizzy
and more confused than ever before

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

bad sector <forgetski@postit_INVALID_.gov> wrote:

It's a Durgod Taurus k-320 (made in China), and the reason I got it
was that ...
... I was up to here with num locks being ON by default so I wanted a keyboard with NO numpad

Your BIOS might have settings for the default state of the keyboard on
boot. My BIOS (well, UEFI) has:

Bootup Num-Lock

Select whether Num Lock should be turned on or off when the system
boots up.

You should check if there is a similar setting in your BIOS. I went to:

https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/CROSSHAIR_IV_FORMULA/

to see if an online copy of that mobo's manual was available, so I could
see if it mentioned a NumLock setting in the BIOS. Yep, that mobo's
BIOS has a NumLock setting, so you could configure the keyboard to have
its NumLock status either on or off on boot.

As I said it's a problem ONLY in the very early stages of boot, and

*I just realise now what that means*

..it's slow ONLY before the OS ignores the BIOS
and takes over, but then it's slow to the point of
sometimes being dead.

Got me confused. It's slow before the OS loads ("before the OS ignores
the BIOS") and it's slow when the OS loads ("then it's slow"). Up to
when the POST screen shows, the BIOS is in charge. It then locates the
boot sector in the active-marked partition on the drive, loads the
bootstrap code in that boot sector into memory, and passes control to
that bootstrap code (for the OS).

So, up to when the POST screen appears (and when the BIOS is in charge),
is the keyboard slow? Or is it after the POST screen disappears (when
the BIOS loads the OS' bootstrap code and passes control to it) when the
gamer keyboard gets slow?

durgod.com does list a driver for that gamer keyboard. Did you install
it? See https://www.durgod.com/Durgod-Zeus-Engine?_l=en. The manual
and software downloads are there. Seems they use the same ones for all
their keyboards.

Since it is a USB device, there is handshaking between the OS and the
device when the device sends its presentation data to the OS which
identifies the device's type. That presentation data gets stored in the registry under the Enumeration key. If the enumeration data gets
corrupted, the OS doesn't know what is the device type. Cleaning out
the enumeration data and forcing a new copy to get stored in the
registry is easy for some but tricky to most. I've had to do it when a
USB device's enumeration data did not match on the USB device after its firmware got updated. The enumeration data mismatch or corruption is
why some techs' canned response is to move the USB device to a different
USB port, but that won't delete the enumeration data for the original
port should you plug the device back into the prior USB port. No point
in getting into erasing the old enumeration data and getting new
presentation data stored in the registry if the keyboard is only slow
BEFORE the OS loads (i.e., after the POST screen disappears).

I bought it at amazon, thing is that living out in the sticks sending anything back involves prohibitive shipping costs,

I usually ask the seller if they're willing to do a warranty exchange.
I buy a new unit, and they send that to me. When I get it, I reuse the packaging to ship back the old defective unit. When they receive it,
they refund my purchase (the 2nd one for the same unit). I've even ran
across several companies that will include a pre-paid label you stick on
the return package, so you don't even have to pay for the return
shipping. The defective unit might still be usable, so a warranty
exchange lets me keep using the defective unit, I slide in the
replacement when it arrives, and I don't lose use of the unit except the
short time to make the switch.

the next one might be a Ps2, or I might try it with a generic Ps2
adapter?

A USB-to-PS/2 adapter is of no use unless the keyboard itself support
BOTH the USB and PS/2 hardware protocols. They keyboard will
automatically switch to match the hardware protocol of the port to which
you connect the keyboard. Make sure the next one actually says it
supports *both* USB and PS/2. The hardware protocol switch requires
active logic, not just passive rewiring within an adapter.

cheap USB-only keyboard: no problem.
gamer USB-only keyboard: problem exists.

Problem resolved. The gamer keyboard is farked.

Well, it _is_ a problem during early boot, the rest of the problem is
still waiting.

If slow up to the POST, and beyond into when the OS loads, then it
sounds like the gamer keyboard is defective. You can either suffer with
it (type on a turd), return for warranty replacement (or return for
refund if within the seller's refund policy period), or use something
else that works reliably. Your choice.

A search at amazon.com on "Durgod Taurus k-320" shows that keyboard can
be bought for $100. It's up to you if you want to invest another $20
USD to ship it back for a warranty return or refund, and hope the
problem isn't intrinsic to the design of that product which has you
afflicted with the same problem with the warranty replacement. That's
why I'd first check if the seller will do a refund, and then get
something else and cheaper. I do like mechanical keyboards, and they
are more expensive than the cheap rubber dome keyboards. However, if I
were to go to the expensive of a "gamer" mechanical keyboard, I'd get
one that connects to PS/2. That criteria excludes ALL of the Durgod
keyboards.

Personally I find the filtering at Amazon sucks, and why I rarely shop
there unless I already know exactly what I want and can search on that
string. You can't use it to narrow the search to what you want. "PC
gaming keyboard" is NOT the same as getting to a keyboard category and
then filtering by mechanical key. Hell, you can't even filter by USB, USB-only, USB+PS/2, or PS/2. Best you can do at Amazon is start from
the top and use a search of "PS2 keyboard mechanical key <color>
gaming", and in the search results pick the Brand filter to match on
brands that I've heard of and perhaps have used before or based on
reviews that I've read before purchasing.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

bad sector <forgetski@postit_INVALID_.gov> wrote:

I post a problem and thanks to many good souls trying to help soon
find myself being the only indian with 20 chiefs dancing around me
gettin' me dizzy and more confused than ever before

Reminds of a movie where the crew was 3 generals and 1 corporal. The
generals issued some order, and the corporal said, "I knew it. I'm
going home in a body bag." So, have you yet heard the sound of a zipper closing?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2020-10-23 03:06, VanguardLH wrote:

bad sector <forgetski@postit_INVALID_.gov> wrote:

It's a Durgod Taurus k-320 (made in China), and the reason I got it
was that ...
... I was up to here with num locks being ON by default so I wanted a
keyboard with NO numpad

Your BIOS might have settings for the default state of the keyboard on
boot. My BIOS (well, UEFI) has:

Bootup Num-Lock

Select whether Num Lock should be turned on or off when the system
boots up.

You should check if there is a similar setting in your BIOS. I went to:

https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/CROSSHAIR_IV_FORMULA/

to see if an online copy of that mobo's manual was available, so I could
see if it mentioned a NumLock setting in the BIOS. Yep, that mobo's
BIOS has a NumLock setting, so you could configure the keyboard to have
its NumLock status either on or off on boot.

As I said it's a problem ONLY in the very early stages of boot, and

*I just realise now what that means*

..it's slow ONLY before the OS ignores the BIOS
and takes over, but then it's slow to the point of
sometimes being dead.

Got me confused. It's slow before the OS loads ("before the OS ignores
the BIOS") and it's slow when the OS loads ("then it's slow"). Up to
when the POST screen shows, the BIOS is in charge. It then locates the
boot sector in the active-marked partition on the drive, loads the
bootstrap code in that boot sector into memory, and passes control to
that bootstrap code (for the OS).

So, up to when the POST screen appears (and when the BIOS is in charge),
is the keyboard slow? Or is it after the POST screen disappears (when
the BIOS loads the OS' bootstrap code and passes control to it) when the gamer keyboard gets slow?

durgod.com does list a driver for that gamer keyboard. Did you install
it? See https://www.durgod.com/Durgod-Zeus-Engine?_l=en. The manual
and software downloads are there. Seems they use the same ones for all
their keyboards.

I use Linux only but even with windows a driver
wouldn't do diddley before the OS loads.

Since it is a USB device, there is handshaking between the OS and the
device when the device sends its presentation data to the OS which
identifies the device's type. That presentation data gets stored in the registry under the Enumeration key. If the enumeration data gets
corrupted, the OS doesn't know what is the device type. Cleaning out
the enumeration data and forcing a new copy to get stored in the
registry is easy for some but tricky to most. I've had to do it when a
USB device's enumeration data did not match on the USB device after its firmware got updated. The enumeration data mismatch or corruption is
why some techs' canned response is to move the USB device to a different
USB port, but that won't delete the enumeration data for the original
port should you plug the device back into the prior USB port. No point
in getting into erasing the old enumeration data and getting new
presentation data stored in the registry if the keyboard is only slow
BEFORE the OS loads (i.e., after the POST screen disappears).

But plugging it into another USB port DOES usually fix the
problem when for example a boot promt is waiting for a
response and I hav the time to do so. In contrast there isn't
time to do so to get to the BIOS because you don't find out
that 'Del' had no effect until it's too late. And this 'changing of
usb port' during BIOS (as a solution) is another aspect of the
thing that totally throws me....

A USB-to-PS/2 adapter is of no use unless the keyboard itself support
BOTH the USB and PS/2 hardware protocols. They keyboard will
automatically switch to match the hardware protocol of the port to which
you connect the keyboard. Make sure the next one actually says it
supports *both* USB and PS/2. The hardware protocol switch requires
active logic, not just passive rewiring within an adapter.

Thanks, lesson learned

cheap USB-only keyboard: no problem.
gamer USB-only keyboard: problem exists.

Problem resolved. The gamer keyboard is farked.

Well, it _is_ a problem during early boot, the rest of the problem is
still waiting.

If slow up to the POST, and beyond into when the OS loads, then it
sounds like the gamer keyboard is defective. You can either suffer with
it (type on a turd), return for warranty replacement (or return for
refund if within the seller's refund policy period), or use something
else that works reliably. Your choice.

The return expired in August, a month after I bought it :(

A search at amazon.com on "Durgod Taurus k-320" shows that keyboard can
be bought for $100. It's up to you if you want to invest another $20
USD to ship it back for a warranty return or refund, and hope the
problem isn't intrinsic to the design of that product which has you
afflicted with the same problem with the warranty replacement. That's
why I'd first check if the seller will do a refund, and then get
something else and cheaper. I do like mechanical keyboards, and they
are more expensive than the cheap rubber dome keyboards. However, if I
were to go to the expensive of a "gamer" mechanical keyboard, I'd get
one that connects to PS/2. That criteria excludes ALL of the Durgod keyboards.

Any specific suggestions (no numpad)?

Personally I find the filtering at Amazon sucks, and why I rarely shop
there unless I already know exactly what I want and can search on that string. You can't use it to narrow the search to what you want. "PC
gaming keyboard" is NOT the same as getting to a keyboard category and
then filtering by mechanical key. Hell, you can't even filter by USB, USB-only, USB+PS/2, or PS/2. Best you can do at Amazon is start from
the top and use a search of "PS2 keyboard mechanical key <color>
gaming", and in the search results pick the Brand filter to match on
brands that I've heard of and perhaps have used before or based on
reviews that I've read before purchasing.

I tend to agree

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2020-10-23 03:17, VanguardLH wrote:

bad sector <forgetski@postit_INVALID_.gov> wrote:

I post a problem and thanks to many good souls trying to help soon
find myself being the only indian with 20 chiefs dancing around me
gettin' me dizzy and more confused than ever before

Reminds of a movie where the crew was 3 generals and 1 corporal. The generals issued some order, and the corporal said, "I knew it. I'm
going home in a body bag." So, have you yet heard the sound of a zipper closing?

only last night but i really don't wanna get into
politics, especially not being an American, ours
here is but to ack what folks to the south decide
for themselves :)

usenet is a threading utility so it's very easy to
quickly build a full and very lush tree that's near
impossible to untangle. What I do sometimes
is answer to myself with a heads up and that kinda
redirects several responses into one but it's not
easy to think of such technique when your desktop
deathstar in on the floor in pieces and is dead alright
but no shining star :))))

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2020-10-23 03:06, VanguardLH wrote:

bad sector <forgetski@postit_INVALID_.gov> wrote:

It's a Durgod Taurus k-320 (made in China), and the reason I got it
was that ...
... I was up to here with num locks being ON by default so I wanted a
keyboard with NO numpad

Your BIOS might have settings for the default state of the keyboard on
boot. My BIOS (well, UEFI) has:

Bootup Num-Lock

Select whether Num Lock should be turned on or off when the system
boots up.

I can do that, but my issue was with the fact that it's
ON by default so every time I load BIOS defaults it's
there again. I suspect that 90% of users not only
never use it, they don't even know what it is so
why is it a default?

As I said it's a problem ONLY in the very early stages of boot, and

*I just realise now what that means*

..it's slow ONLY before the OS ignores the BIOS
and takes over, but then it's slow to the point of
sometimes being dead.

Got me confused. It's slow before the OS loads ("before the OS ignores
the BIOS") and it's slow when the OS loads ("then it's slow").

Sory that was badly written at two levels: I used
the word SLOW because it appeared to be slow,
it's actually either working or DEAD before the OS
loads, very hard to put a number on it like
how many times out of 10. Hitting 'Del' to get
to the BIOS edit seems to be dead most of the
time. But, when it is dead and I realize that when
I become unable to select from a boot menu with
the arrow keys then plugging into another usb
port almost always fixes the problem. At this point
the system is past BIOS and in grub's undrworld.
This same trick could maybe work too the get to
the bios to edit iot but the opportunity is missing
at that point.

Up to when the POST screen shows, the BIOS is in charge. It then
locates the boot sector in the active-marked partition on the drive,
loads the bootstrap code in that boot sector into memory, and passes
control to that bootstrap code (for the OS).

I'm not knowlegable enough to distinguish between
before and after post, and I don't know if the boot
code (strictly grub2) deals at all with usb.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

bad sector <forgetski@postit_INVALID_.gov> wrote:

I use Linux only but even with windows a driver wouldn't do diddley
before the OS loads.

True, but I thought you said the keyboard was slow after the OS loaded,
too. Maybe the driver would provide a quicker interface to the device
than the standard HID driver bundled in Windows.

I revisited their web site. It sucks: hardly any info there. Their
"driver" download looks to be just a tweaker and macro tool. The only documentation there on their "driver" is a picture of its GUI, so it's a program, not a driver. See an enlarged pic at:

https://pmt3dcbca-pic35.websiteonline.cn/upload/310-01_ksxm.png

Looks like the program lets you assign macros to keys, change keycodes,
and adjust lighting. It's a tweaker, not a driver. Hopefully the
keyboard has some memory to store the tweaks, so you don't have to keep
setting them over and over.

Durgod Zeus Engine
^^^ ^^^^

They sure are into god names and Greek mythology, and for a Chinese
company. Odd they didn't call it Pangu or Jade Emperor.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

bad sector <forgetski@postit_INVALID_.gov> wrote:

I can do that [set NumLock state on boot in the BIOS], but my issue
was with the fact that it's ON by default so every time I load BIOS
defaults it's there again. I suspect that 90% of users not only never
use it, they don't even know what it is so why is it a default?

Because the vast majority of users don't use compact keyboards (no
numpad). They aren't going to use a default for the rare few. For the majority, they don't want the numpad duplicating the keypresses from the arrowpad. Why have 2 keys for Up, 2 keys for Down, 2 keys for Home, and
so on? Most users have an arrowpad and a numpad, and they want them to
default to those behaviors. Numlock off by default on boot means the
numpad becomes another arrowpad.

I'm not knowlegable enough to distinguish between
before and after post, and I don't know if the boot
code (strictly grub2) deals at all with usb.

Unless configured to show an ad banner (usually showing the brand name)
which obliterates the POST screen, the POST screen shows information and detected devices, waits 1-3 seconds (sometimes this is configurable),
and then loads the OS bootstrap code into memory and passes control to
it. When the POST screen disappears, you're into the OS load phase.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2020-10-23 13:40, VanguardLH wrote:

bad sector <forgetski@postit_INVALID_.gov> wrote:

I use Linux only but even with windows a driver wouldn't do diddley
before the OS loads.

True, but I thought you said the keyboard was slow after the OS loaded,
too. Maybe the driver would provide a quicker interface to the device
than the standard HID driver bundled in Windows.

I don't use windows as such but there's no problem
with the keyboard under any Linux distro OS nor under
windows (without a driver) running as a virtual machine
(vbox) under Linux.

Come to think of it there having been very few times
when I _could_ enter into BIOS for editing while holding
down the 'Del' key, maybe it wasn't because of the delete
key at all but because of some other hangup. Once the
boot gets to the grub boot menu the keys may still be
without effect X times out of 10 but then all I have
to do is plug the keyboatrd into another usb port
(maybe just cycle it in the same one). This part
holds some of the answer I'm sure. I know grub does
a lot of sniffing but that's all way over my head.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

bad sector <forgetski@postit_INVALID_.gov> wrote:

Come to think of it there having been very few times when I _could_
enter into BIOS for editing while holding down the 'Del' key, maybe
it wasn't because of the delete key at all but because of some other
hangup.

Since you are using a USB-only keyboard (and likely a USB-only mouse,
too), check the BIOS is *not* set to enable legacy devices (which are
PS/2 input devices).

Another setting in BIOS is how long to wait at the POST screen. In my
BIOS (UEFI), I go there under the Boot tab to configure the timeout for
the Setup Prompt Timetout. Some default to just 1 second which isn't
even enough time for you to notice it's time when you can hit the hotkey
to get into BIOS. I can't see what is my value unless I reboot, but my
guess is that I upped it to 4 (seconds).

The manual for your mobo is at: https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/socketAM3/Crosshair_IV_Formula/E5443_Crosshair_IV_Formula_manual.zip

Page 3-7 has a screenshot of the main BIOS screen. There's a Boot tab,
so I looked under there. I did not find a timeout that I could set for
holding on the POST screen, but there is a "Quick Boot" setting (enabled
by default). I would disable that, because info in the POST screen is
often critical to debugging hardware problems, like seeing if the BIOS
found all the internal drives (CD/DVD, HDD, SSD).

I would also disable the Fullscreen Logo settings. That's there ad
banner to announce you bought an Asus product. Big whoopdee doo. Often
it obliterates some, or all, of the POST screen. It doesn't save any
time nor does it consume more. It's just a nuisance to experts merely
to hide the tech data from boobs.

There is a "Hit 'Del' Message Display" setting to show the prompt to hit
Del on the POST screen. Is that enabled?

Under the Advanced tab, USB config, I'd try setting Legacy USB Support
to Enabled (instead of the Auto default) just to see if the USB keyboard behaves better during the POST (BIOS startup up to POST screen, but
before the OS loads). You'll also want to make sure the USB 2.0
controller is set to HiSpeed mode.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2020-10-22 10:07, bad sector wrote:

Having 'increasing' probs with my 8-core AMD destktop. The board is
an asus-xhair-IV

Boot often doesn't even begin and pops the subject error message
which includes "or F.. to load defaults" and words of this nature.

CPU temps never above 50c.

BIOS should come up by touching "Del" but it takes a dozen attempts
for that to work with my new usb gaming keyboard.

This morning bios just would not detect 2 of my data drives in sata
slots 3 & 4 (using a 5-bay rack with 1-4 sata reserved).

After I don't know how many reboots bios still wasn't detecting but
"fdisk -l" finally picked one of them up.

On the last boot bios detected it too, got it mounted, and it's
presently taking 1tb of backups.

I would just like some ballpark hunches to start with, what

do symptoms like this suggest? Mobo, rack, bios?

tried another trick too:

When the "press 4 to activate the Asus Core unlocker"
showed up I knew I did not have enough time to cycle
the keyboard usb connection to another or to the same
usb port, BUT that there was a good chance that the
alert would show again on the next boot. On this first
boot the grub boot menu would have showed up and
THEN I would have had the time tio cycle the connection
if needed.

But I wanted to experiemnt so I re-booted with the
keyboard disconnected ready to connect it when I
see the alert and being at the same time ready to hit
the 4 key. It worked.

So to my brain-stem level expertise it looks like the
keyboard is not recognized initially but an insertion is.

NB. I'm always using the mobo usb ports only, the
ones on the back and never the fron panel addons.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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