How to disable secure boot after video card failure

[adamodonnell]

My desktop has onboard graphics, but it seems to be failing. Weird lines and the computer just locks up. After two days it now even does it when I'm in the BIOS. I bought a replacement card, but as I understand it I can't replace the card without disabling the secure boot. But I can't disable the secure boot if my computer locks up as soon as the BIOS loads. 🙂 

Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

[adamodonnell]

Side note: I believe I have the HP ENVY 700-056. It's the tower with the A10-6700 processor and Radeon HD 8670D onboard.

[TheOldMan]

Here is a thread for a similar question.  You should not have to make any BIOS changes as the onboard graphics will be disabled when the graphics card is installed.  I think what you read elsewhere and may have been misleading.

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Desktop-Hardware-and-Upgrade-Questions/How-to-upgrade-Graphic-card/td-...

Here is a site that shows what cards will work with the motherboard

http://www.pc-specs.com/mobo/MSI/MSI_MS-7778_(Jasmine_R)/3575/Compatible_GPUs

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi, @TheOldMan

The specs for that model indicate that it came with W8 from the factory.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c03782932/

I am all but 100% sure that one cannot install any non-HP video card (in other words, a video card not built for HP for a specific HP model series) in any HP PC that came with W8 or newer, without going into the BIOS, and enabling legacy mode and disabling secure boot.

The PC will beep 6 times and the PC will not boot.

See this link for more on that.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c03653200/

If the OP installs a generic video card, say the GT 620 from the list you posted, while it may be supported, the PC will beep and not boot because the BIOS settings were not changed. 

The only way it will work is if the OP buys a HP-branded video card made for that model series, and the parts list does not list any optional video cards, so I don't know which ones would be sure to work with secure boot enabled.

http://partsurfer.hp.com/Search.aspx?searchText=H5Q15AA

Hi, @adamodonnell

All I can say is install the video card you bought and see what happens...if you can return it to the store if it doesn't.

[adamodonnell]

I appreciate the advice, but I have definitely tried to install it. When it's installed the computer won't boot. I have to remove it to get it to boot. Or attempt to boot. 

That's why I was trying to disable the onboard graphics. Without it disabled I can't install a new card, but I can't disable it because the onboard graphics chip is crapping out. It attempts to boot and goes all squiggly lines. I can't even open the BIOS long enough to make any changes before it crashes like this. I really hate to trash the machine when it's probably just the graphics chip. All because HP wants to lock down boot/upgrade options. 

[Paul_Tikkanen]

When you install a video card in that model, the onboard graphics is automatically disabled.

You don't need to go into the BIOS and disable the onboard graphics.

Such a BIOS setting doesn't even exist on that model.

Either the graphics card you bought is incompatible with the PC, or the secure boot function is preventing PC from booting up with the card installed.  The problem could be both.

And since you can't get into the BIOS to enable legacy mode and disable secure boot, I'm afraid you are completely out of options other than to replace the motherboard (which causes other issues such as Windows not activating).

[adamodonnell]

UPDATE: I was finally able to get it to run long enough to get into the BIOS and there is indeed a secure boot option. I disabled that and enabled the legacy boot. When I did that and walked through the follow-up confirmation it locked up again shortly after that. Hard shut down, installed the new card, unplugged monitors from the onboard card, plugged into the new card and it booted up perfectly. 

So - in case someone googles this - there IS a lock on adding new graphics card, you can turn it off in BIOS and then it works fine. HOWEVER, my PC is still locking up. I'm not getting the squiggly lines of different colors all over the screen but it's still locking up a few minutes after booting up. I even rebooted and ran Ubuntu off of a USB and it crashed a few minutes after boot as well. At this point I feel like I can eliminate the hard drive, Windows, and replacing the graphics card ... assuming it's just a motherboard issue. Don't know what else to blame. 

Oh well, as HP support told me (in the most patronizing tone possible 🙂 ), "it's a 4-year-old machine". I guess these days if you want it to last more than a couple of years you build it yourself, so that's what I'll do tomorrow. Good times!

Thanks for the help anyway, fellas. Really do appreciate it.

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

You're very welcome.

There is one thing you left out that you can easily check and that is the memory.

Remove all memory modules but one, and test them one at a time.

If the PC locks up, remove that one and go to the next, and so on.

If the PC locks up with any of the memory modules installed, it is probably not the memory.

But if you find that it works fine with some memory modules and not others, then you have isolated the issue and can replace the bad memory modules.

They don't always fail diagnostic checks.

[adamodonnell]

Good call. I'll give that a shot tomorrow. Can't hurt to try before I spend more money. 🙂

[adamodonnell]

Hey @Paul_Tikkanen, I'm shocked but the memory seems to have been the issue. Or at least one of the issues. After finally unlocking the secure boot and replacing the video card I was no longer getting the weird different color lines all over the screen, but it was still locking up. As you suggested, before I went out and replaced the motherboard, I pulled out all the RAM sticks. There was a sale so I picked up one when I got the video card. Assuming that one would be the most likely to work perfectly, I left it in and removed the others. No lock up since!

For some reason during all of this chaos windows files got jacked up, so I had enough weird errors and stuff come up that I decided to do a fresh Windows install just to be safe. But I've been running the last 36 hours with no issues. So smooth that I haven't wanted to test and see if the new video card was unnecessary (I'll gladly just keep it!), and I haven't wanted to bother adding back RAM yet either. I'll maybe test that one weekend where I have a bit more time.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestion!