Intel NUC7i7DNHE with Win 10 Pro randomly not booting

[MRocc3]

Hello,

I have four NUC7i7DNHE that run in headless mode (no video, keyword, mouse) that I control using Intel AMT and meshcommander, all running Windows 10 Pro. I need to reboot them automatically everyday, and roughly one every three times they fail to boot into Windows. The same issue affects all four NUCs.

They all run Win 10 with the most up to date drivers.

When this happens and I connect to AMT via meshcommander, remote desktop, I simply see a blank screen (with status Power On).

In the BIOS, under Devices, Video, Display Emulation, I selected Headless display emulation. I also bought hardware display emulators , but it didn't make a difference.

There are many posts mentioning issues with booting and NUC in headless mode, but I couldn't find any solution that fixed my problem. The odd thing is that the behaviour is random, sometimes they boot, sometimes they don't.

I have also tried to enable Legacy boot, as some other posts suggested to try, but nothing has changed.

The four NUCs (all having the same issue) have the following BIOS installed:

DNKBLi7v.86A.0066.2019.0710.1150 (most up to date)

one NUC has also this one DNKBLi7v.86A.0052.2018.0808.1344

all having the same issue.

It is very disappointing as we bought several of these specific units for their ability to run Intel AMT and be able to control them remotely.

Looking at the AMT event log, I notice that when Windows does not boot, the last log message is

51 9/2/2019 5:53 pm BIOS Starting operating system boot process.

The same message is displayed when Windows actually boots fine. I'm therefore wondering if this is an issue with Windows boot (and the handover of the display controller from BIOS to Windows) rather than with the BIOS itself. Is there a way to check it looking at Windows logs ?

In the same logs, I also have another error after reboot:

65 9/1/2019 7:23 pm System board Unrecoverable PS/2 or USB keyboard failure.

But this seems to clear fine every time.

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

[Emeth_O_Intel]

Hi MRocc3,

Thank you for contacting Intel® Active Management Technology Community. 

I will be more than happy to help you and figure out the root cause of the issue.

Could you please so kind and provide to me the Screen Resolution you are using on those systems and also the brand-name and model for the displays.

Is this the first time you are trying to accomplish this configuration? Or the systems were working fine before?

I will be waiting for your outcome in order to proceed with the next step.

Regards,

Emeth O.

Intel Customer Support Technician

A Contingent Worker at Intel

[MRocc3]

Hi Emeth,

Thanks for the quick reply.

The NUCs are headless, therefore no screen is attached (and no keyword, no mouse). In a couple of units I'm using a display emulator (this one: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Headless-Display-Emulator-Headless-1920x1080-generation/dp/B072PV6K8J), and the resolution is 1920x1080, but this makes no difference. All units, sometime, get stuck during booting, and Windows does not load. I could not identify any pattern - I reboot all machines everyday at a fixed time through a scheduled task, and this booting issue is random across all units.

Note that when the NUC gets stuck during booting, and I connect a screen, I see a blank screen - it looks like no signal is coming out of the HDMI port.

The four systems have always shown this behaviour. The NUCs NUC7i7DNHE have been bought at different times, so they're not part of the same "batch".

Note that if I do connect a screen and leave it on, then the NUCs always reboot into Windows without any issue. So it has to do with running them without a screen, mouse and keyboard.

Best regards,

Marco

[Emeth_O_Intel]

Hi MRocc3,

Thank you for the information provided.

Let me double-check those details and as soon as possible I will be right back with you.

Regards,

Emeth O.

Intel Customer Support Technician

A Contingent Worker at Intel

[MRocc3]

Hi Emeth

Thanks!

I have monitored the systems more closely recently, and I noticed that one unit is having a different issue, and I'm wondering if this is tricking me into thinking that the machines get stuck due to the daily reboots (and failed booting).

By having a closer look at the AMT logs, I notice that one NUC is affected by this error frequently:

Intel® AMT Operating system lockup or power interrupt

When this happens, the machine goes into a locked state, Intel AMT is not accessible, and Windows also seems down (cannot access it remotely through Intel KMV). I need to power cycle the unit to recover it. Note that this happens when Windows is running (and not during a reboot).

Regards

Marco

[MRocc3]

Hi Emeth

Bad luck - the AMT Operating system lockup or power interrupt is just an additional issue to the rebooting issue.

I just had a failed reboot :( Please see attached the AMT Event log, it might be helpful

From the log you can see we're missing the "Starting operating system boot process". This happened just after a scheduled reboot.

[Emeth_O_Intel]

Hi Marco,

Thank you for the information provided.

As addition, could you please so kind and provide us the Intel AMT Logs in order to review them as well form our end.

Regards,

Emeth O.

Intel Customer Support Technician

A Contingent Worker at Intel

[Emeth_O_Intel]

Hi Marco, 

Thank you for the time you have been waiting. 

To isolate out AMT as the cause, could you please unprovision the NUC’s and then perform the restarts to see if the problem still happens. 

If the problem still occurs, it’s definitely an issue with the NUC.

By any chance, When you have the HDMI display emulator connected, do you also have the BIOS display emulation enabled?

I will be waiting for your outcome in order to proceed with the next step. 

Regards,

Emeth O.

Intel Customer Support Technician

A Contingent Worker at Intel

[MRocc3]

Hi Emeth

After a couple of days of testing with the units next to me I nailed down the issue. The issue was not related to the headless operation, but to the Intel RTS, RAID 1 configuration.

I tried all combinations as you suggested (with/without monitor, with/without bios headless emulation, with/without display emulator, with/without Intel AMT) but in all cases 1 in about 5 reboots on average were failing , with Event log stuck at Starting ROM initialisation (and no "Starting operating system boot process." message).

Then I removed the Intel RTS RAID configuration (from the BIOS, I changed SATA mode from RAID to AHCI, I was running all units in RAID 1 using the SATA and M.2 slots), recovered Windows as switching RAID off broke the partitions, and, woorah, no issues with rebooting at all. I switched all 6 units to AHCI, and no issues so far... So all the issues we had were due to the unstable performance of Intel RTS.

One issue is still there, which is affecting only one NUC and I believe is a hardware fault of some sort. This was reported on one of my posts above. This specific system randomly freezes and needs to be power cycled. From the Event log, I'm getting this error when this happens:

Intel® AMT Operating system lockup or power interrupt

I tried to do disk check, memory check, etc, but no issues are identified. Windows Event logs also don't show anything odd. Any idea?

Regards

Marco

[Wanner_G_Intel]

Hello MRocc3,

Based on the troubleshooting steps performed, we would like to expedite the resolution of this issue. We have sent you a private message in order to gather additional information to better assist you.

Regards,

Wanner G.

Intel Customer Support Technician

A Contingent Worker at Intel

[Wanner_G_Intel]

Hello MRocc3,

If you need further assistance, please let us know. We will be glad to assist you.

Wanner G.

Intel Customer Support Technician

A Contingent Worker at Intel

[Wanner_G_Intel]

Hello all,

We are currently investigating this issue. We will get back to the community as soon as we have any update.

Wanner G.

Intel Customer Support Technician

A Contingent Worker at Intel

[Wanner_G_Intel]

Hello all,

This issue has been resolved by working directly with the community post originator. If your system is exhibiting the same behavior, please contact Intel Customer Support.

Contact information

Wanner G.

Intel Customer Support Technician

A Contingent Worker at Intel

[flameotter]

Similar issue. AMT Event log is showing Unrecoverable PS/2 or USB keyboard failure.

Showing several times.

After reboot, the Intel AMT works for a few hours and then disappears. Only becomes available if I reboot the system.

I had this issues a few months ago, which usually occurred when a Windows Operating system was used. When I switched to Linux is seemed to have stopped.

Has anybody else faced similar issues? and how was it resolved?

Thank you,