Odd Boot Behavior

[jare166]

My NUC (10th gen, i5, FNH; about 3 months old at this point) would not shut down one day, entering a restart cycle every time I tried to shut it down.

I eventually got it to shut down by holding the power button, but then when I went to turn it on again later, it would not respond.

I can get it to turn on by:

1. Unplugging the unit
2. Holding the power button
3. Plugging in the unit while the power button is held

And now, a couple weeks after the initial issue, it will shut down again normally without me needing to hold the power button.

Question: Since it's still under warranty, should I send it to be fixed? Is there anything I can do to get it to boot normally (without the process above) again? (I can't get the motherboard out, so I have been unable to remove the CMOS battery.)

Side Notes: I'm not too thrilled about the workaround above; to my understanding, it allows an initial safety check to be skipped so that the machine will make it to POST, so I would normally never do it, but I really needed to use this computer over the past 2 weeks.

Also, interestingly, if I turn the computer off, leave it plugged into its (powered on) surge protector, and then turn it on, it will respond. If I switch the surge protector off (equivalent to unplugging the unit), however, then at next boot I must use the workaround described above.

Other than this, it does not exhibit any odd behavior (except high fans for the first 30 minutes or so of sleep), also I have updated to BIOS version 52 (if I recall correctly) following the emergence of this problem.

Any advice is appreciated; thanks!

[LeonWaksman · Accepted solution]

1. In my opinion it is to early to use the warranty coverage in order to replace your NUC. I have experienced such behavior in my NUC FN, and the problem disappeared after resetting BIOS to default settings (F9 and then F10). FYI, you don't need to remove the board in order to disconnect the CMOS battery connector. This connector is located on the board bottom (the accessible) side. You need only remove the SSD. See the attached image, showing where this connector is located.

2. In addition verify that that ME and EC firmware version are updated: 14.0.47.1558 and 03.09.00 respectively.  You will find those version in BIOS on the Main page.

3. By default, the Standby Type in your NUC is set to Modern Standby. I founded that this mode is not always working correctly in this NUC. So, I've changed it to the Legacy S3 Standby. If you want to change the Sleep Type, you may do this only if Windows is set to SAFE boot mode before changing the Sleep Type. Failing to set Windows to SAFE boot mode, will result in system corruption.

Leon

[jare166]

Thanks! This is great information; I especially appreciate the picture, it will be a lot easier to disconnect the CMOS battery that way.

I'll take a look at the ME and EC firmware, and will see about resetting the BIOS to default settings also (I think I may have done this when updating, but no harm in checking again, just in case).

As far as the Standby Type goes, I probably won't change that at the moment; I'm not running Windows, but rather Linux (Pop! OS, a fork of Ubuntu), and I'm not sure how favorably it would handle this change. Thanks for your help/advice!