Boots to black screen

[ComputerBob]

Hello all! I've been trying to run this after getting a memory management error blue screen on my PC. I've bought a new USB, imaged it using the tool PassMark provide in the zip file and selected it as the boot device in UEFI BIOS but it boots to black screen.

So far I've tried: Unplugging my 2nd monitor, disabling secure boot, and setting CSM to auto. Before all this, I even updated my BIOS over the internet connection so I'd be sure it was at least up to date.

That's not fixed it so far, luckily there's no rush as my memory comes with a lifetime warranty anyway.

Not sure where to go from here so I've attached the last 3 logs from when I've booted it.

My board is an Asus EX-A320M-Gaming with Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-3200 (2x8GB modules) and the CPU is a Ryzen 5 3600

[David (PassMark)]

The fact that you got a log file from MemTest86 means that it started to boot MemTest86.

Each log file seems to finish prematurely at exactly the same place. In each case it seems to run into a problem while detecting the File Systems connected to the machine. It find a few drives then comes across something called "VenMedia" and seems to die.

What drives do you have connected to the system?

We'll also have a closer look at the log and add any other details we find.

Update: That VenMedia is associated with the GUID number, BA7C46D1-9C5E-4FC8-943D-1A491F23FE01, which seems to be a CD drive? As an experiment can you 1) Try and remove any media from the CD drive. Then is that doesn't change anything, 2) Unplug the CD drive temporarily.

Log entry in question is,
2023-08-15 18:13:01 - PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1,0x3)/Pci(0x0,0x1)/Sata(0x1,0xFFFF,0x0)/VenMedia(BA7C46D1-9C5E-4FC8-943D-1A491F23FE01,B57A1E000000000022003B0000000000003B0 008000000000800460101080000200200000100000101004D4 220535550504F5254204344202020202020202020202020202 02020202020)

[ComputerBob]

The fact that you got a log file from MemTest86 means that it started to boot MemTest86.

Each log file seems to finish prematurely at exactly the same place. In each case it seems to run into a problem while detecting the hard drives connected to the machine. It find a few drives then comes across something called "VenMedia" and seems to die.

What drives do you have connected to the system?

We'll also have a closer look at the log and add any other details we find.

Hi David - not sure what VenMedia even is. I have 2 1tb drives connected, one is an old HDD (WD Caviar Black) and the other is a more recent SSD (Samsung Evo)

I did a Google search for VenMedia and other than some companies that come up were tech boards discussing UEFI issues one of which had this to say (see attached image)

Source: https://u-boot.readthedocs.io/en/lat...uefi/uefi.html

[David (PassMark)]

Would still be good to test it without CD drive connected (assuming there is one).

Also can you check if there is any BIOS update available from ASUS.

[ComputerBob]

Would still be good to test it without CD drive connected (assuming there is one).

Also can you check if there is any BIOS update available from ASUS.

Solved! I installed a physical copy of The Witcher 3 in 2015 and then forgot I had an optical drive connected.

Disconnected it and now it works.

[David (PassMark)]

This is pretty strange. As as optical drive should not prevent the PC from booting. Makes sense that it wasn't possible to detect the file system if there was no media in the CD drive, but this should not cause a freeze. Maybe CD drive was just super slow. How long did you wait at the black screen before deciding that it had locked up?

[tonto1]

I had the same problem on my ASUS Z170-A system with latest BIOS (booting from any USB stick I tried gives black screen). In my case, I just removed the CD I had in my optical drive (it had MemTest 86 V4) and it booted and started MemTest86 v10 from the USB stick. Note that when you use ImageUSB.exe to write the IMG file to the USB, it creates a few partitions. When you startup your system and see the ASUS logo, press F8 a few times to get the boot menu and select the 1st partition on the USB. ** My setup includes 2 monitors daisy chained on DisplayPort and a single 16 GB memory module in slot A2..

[David (PassMark)]

As both machine were ASUS motherboards, it is possible this is a UEFI firmware bug, when detecting the file system of a CD media during boot.

[GoldenBuckeye]

I had the same problem with my ASUS board and only figured it out because of this thread. I took the CD out of my CDROM and it all of a sudden worked. Crazy!

[David (PassMark)]

Update: We might have found what caused this (divide by zero when volume size is 0). Some chance it will be fixed in V10.7