BIOS settings for ASUS H97I-PLUS?

[valitor]

After my Asrock Z87E-ITX mainboard had a defect, I bought an ASUS H97I-PLUS as a replacement while keeping the rest of the hardware: 4570S CPU, Samsung 830 SSD, 16 GB Corsair RAM.

OS: Mavericks 10.9.5

However, the mainboard won't boot from the SSD. After the initial boot screen from ASUS, the screen goes blank for 3 seconds, then the mainboard switches to the BIOS settings, indicating that no bootable device was found. I've verified that the content of the SSD is just fine, latest Chameleon, booted just fine with the old mainboard.

I've tried various suggestions for BIOS settings (Secure Boot set to Other OS, enable/disable CSM), none helped.

Can someone with the exact same mainboard please post their exact non-default BIOS settings?

Also, before buying this mainboard it was suggested that all 9-series mainboards should have an unlocked MSR. Is that actually true?

 

[valitor]

I've found the solution, and I'm keeping this thread in case others run into the same problem:

Apparently, the stock BIOS of the ASUS H97I-PLUS at the time of purchase is 0505. This BIOS does NOT have an unlocked MSR, i.e. an HDD/SSD with 10.9.5 will NOT boot with this BIOS version.

I upgraded to the latest BIOS as of this writing (2603) which has a new option to disable the CFG, i.e. MSR lock, and by default it's set to disabled, i.e. the MSR is unlocked.

And now the same HDD/SSD with 10.9.5 will boot just fine.

 

[WonkeyDonkey]

I've found the solution, and I'm keeping this thread in case others run into the same problem:

Apparently, the stock BIOS of the ASUS H97I-PLUS at the time of purchase is 0505. This BIOS does NOT have an unlocked MSR, i.e. an HDD/SSD with 10.9.5 will NOT boot with this BIOS version.

I upgraded to the latest BIOS as of this writing (2603) which has a new option to disable the CFG, i.e. MSR lock, and by default it's set to disabled, i.e. the MSR is unlocked.

And now the same HDD/SSD with 10.9.5 will boot just fine.

This is the case with most of Asus 9 Series boards since they decided to introduce the config lock after the boards were initially released. I haven't seen this publically documented on their website anywhere, even on the change logs for the bios updates; it seems it was done quietly.

In general, it is a good idea to work with the most up to date bios with a new board though, unless you have a specific reason not to.