Motherboards are some of the most essential components for computers since they make all your other components work. A motherboard is a figurative glue that makes your computer words, in short.
Users sometimes have issues regarding boot when they first install a new motherboard, however. Sometimes, your computer won’t let you get past the BIOS screen and into Windows.
That begs the question, why is that? Furthermore, how do we fix computers with new motherboards being stuck in BIOS?
In general, the easiest way to avoid getting these problems with new motherboards is to do a fresh installation of Windows. If your old and new motherboards aren’t very similar, there’s a good chance for incompatibility errors to occur. Make sure you back up your files, then install Windows anew to avoid these issues.
This is the most common way of fixing issues regarding the problem in question, however, if you have already done this and your computer still isn’t booting, or if you want to explore other fixes first, then continue reading.
1. Check Your Motherboard Configuration
First, make sure that your motherboard is connected to your PC. More specifically, check if the power connector of the motherboard is connected properly.
See to it that there’s no damage on the cable and that it’s connected properly to the PSU. This goes for your other components as well, such as the CPU.
Make sure that all cables to your motherboard are plugged in their correct places and that they’re not loose. Let’s be thorough here, so we can exclude potential issues one at a time.
2. Enable CSM / Legacy Boot
There’s a good chance your old motherboard was using legacy BIOS as opposed to UEFI. If your new motherboard uses UEFI and not legacy BIOS and you haven’t configured your boot to reflect this, there may be problems.
Your old motherboard probably used CSM to boot your computer, while your new motherboard uses another technique called GPT, which is a more modern and generally better method.
Your system will be set to boot in CSM and not GPT, which means that it won’t be able to boot with your new motherboard. That’s why you should enable CSM in your BIOS screen to see if this fixes your issue.
Look for a tab regarding Boot in your BIOS screen. Exactly what this is called differs somewhat depending on what type of motherboard brand you have.
After this, look for options regarding CSM and select Enable. Look for an option called Save & Exit or something like that, then reboot your computer if it doesn’t do it automatically.
3. Remove Peripherals
Remove your external peripheral devices from your computer. Sometimes, peripheral devices such as USB connections will create conflicts with Windows and as a result, Windows won’t boot.
Keep your keyboard connected but disconnect the other peripheral devices you may have to your computer. This includes the mouse. The things that should be connected to your computer are the power cables and your keyboard.
After this, restart your computer. If your system boots up normally this time, then you will have to connect your USB devices one at a time to see which one caused the boot issue.
4. Load Optimized Default Settings
You can also make sure that no settings in the BIOS screen are causing your computer to not boot, by loading the optimized default settings of your BIOS.
What this means is just that you restore the default settings to the BIOS, which will make the faulty settings go away. Hopefully.
Again, the specifics of what you should look for are somewhat unclear since it varies from brand to brand but look for options pertaining to default settings. In some cases, it says Load optimized default settings, and in other cases, it says Load default profile or Optimized default profile.
5. Update BIOS / UEFI
Make sure that the BIOS is up to date. Since you can’t get into Windows to check what version of BIOS / UEFI you have, look in the menu you can access after version numbers.
After this, you will need to go to your motherboard manufacturer’s website on another device and look for BIOS updates. They usually have support or download tabs somewhere.
The process of how to do this varies somewhat depending on what kind of motherboard you have, so I would suggest looking up exactly how to go about updating the BIOS / UEFI on your specific motherboard.
6. Make Sure That RAM Sticks Are Plugged In Correctly
Make sure that your RAM sticks are inserted correctly into your motherboard. They should be plugged into the slots next to the CPU socket. There are usually four slots for RAM sticks.
If you have two RAM sticks, stick them in either slots 1 and 3 or 2 and 4. If you have 2 sets of RAM sticks, don’t put two sticks of different models into the same “channel” (i.e, 2 and 4 or 1 and 3).
Something else that’s worth noting, you should hear a click when the RAM is seated correctly. If you don’t, then you might have to tinker with it a bit more.
Finally, you can try to boot with only one RAM at a time to see if one of your RAM sticks is the problem. Do this with every stick.
7. Reinstall Your Operating System
It’s highly recommended to perform a fresh install of Windows when switching motherboards. This is to avoid things such as driver problems and other bugs that prevent your Windows system from working correctly.
Sometimes you don’t have to reinstall Windows, but the cases where that’s worth it are rare. Your Windows license is associated with your motherboard, too, so you will have to reactivate Windows for your new motherboard.
You can try doing this by downloading Windows installation media and then putting it on a USB flash drive, then booting the installation media from the thumb drive.
Before you do this, make sure you have the license key ready. If you don’t have a digital key that’s connected to your Microsoft account, you may need to contact Windows support to activate Windows using your old activation key.
The process of doing this through a USB flash drive is somewhat lengthy, and I would suggest reading this guide on how to do it properly.