We recently ran into a strange issue with the Asrock J3455M motherboard and Windows 10. The system would boot up the first time without any issue, but if you do a soft shutdown in Windows...the system would then not boot up a second time. The only way to get back into Windows was to wait 10-15 minutes for Windows to get ahold of itself...or to pull the power cord.
Whenever an issue like this comes up, first thing we test is the hardware. In this instance, the hardware was fine and we were actually able to replicate this on a completely different motherboard and with a fresh clean Windows 10 installation. That immediately made the issue even more strange. On a different motherboard with a fresh installation the issue should not be replicated since we've never seen this issue before. Additionally, to add to the odditiy of this issue, we were able to replicate this problem on three systems...but a forth system was fine!
After speaking with our techs, the next step was to test the video output. Their theory was that either the motherboard or Windows was switching between the VGA, and DVI/HDMI. Since we were testing the system with VGA it would make sense to test the other outputs. The video results were as follows:
- VGA only: Issue occures
- DVI: No issue
- DVA+VGA: No issue
So obviously the problem was with the video right? Well, not quite. If I plugged the DVI cable in after booting with VGA, no video would show up. So the system is not switching between video outputs randomly.
After this, we were pretty convinced that the issue lies with Windows. So we installed the previous version from 2017, and the issue was not reproducable. We installed Windows 1803 and the problem came back.
What we found out is that the cumulative Windows Update as of August 2018 is what was causing the problem. If we installed Windows 1803 without the network connected, it ran fine. However, once we connected it an ran updates...the system would have this error. However, that's not all. If we uninstalled the update, the error would persist.
How to solve the issue
- Install Windows 10 r1803 without the network connected so Windows won't grab the August cumulative update.
- If a network connection is required and the cumulative updates are installed, then you will need to disable fast boot within Windows. Go to Control Panel -> Hardware and Sound -> Power Options -> Choose what the power button does -> Change options that are currently unavailable -> Uncheck "Turn on fast startup (recommended)"
The problem seems to be related to the Windows update plus fast boot. This makes sense because the system would eventually come up, it would just take 10 or 15 minutes.
