Predator Triton 500 PT515-52 Will not boot from Win11 USB drive, need BIOS help?

MarcKMythall
MarcKMythall Member Posts: 5

Tinkerer

edited June 2023 in Predator Laptops

Older techie here, rusty, working on my home business laptop and gaming rig, could sure use an expert's opinion. I've been beating my head on this for past 48 hours and hoping someone will take pity on me this holiday weekend... here's a synopsis of the issue:

Acer Predator TRITON 500 (PT515-52) running Windows 11 began to have issues a few weeks ago, repeated crashes until last week became severe. The issue was tracked down to SSD (see below). Two new SSD were installed (rather painfully, as this beast is not for the weak of heart to upgrade!), system powered up, but I cannot get past the non-bootable device. Windows 11 USB drive created with Win11 Media Creation Tool will not boot from USB, consistently gives BSOD Stop Code "Kernel Security Check Failure".


Here's what I've done so far, and my troubleshooting:

1. I have created not one but THREE USB Windows 11 bootable drives... I know they work as I had used one of them to reinstall windows 11 as a clean install on the old SSD.  If it matters, I used a PNY 32 GB usb cheap drives but as I said, they were able to boot up on same laptop on old SSD before I removed it but cannot boot now. Also, I tested the USB ports with a USB mouse (works) and moved the drive to another port just to rule out hardware/port issue.

2. The old SSD was definitely the cause of the core original problem (before this one). I've run both Acer and third-party diagnostics, and all show memory and other components were running fine. Old SSD was 80% full, and when I ran Acer Care Center before upgrading old SSD, memory and all other components passed, SSD drive check would fail, system would crash. I replicated this 3 times and the SSD drive test would never run, would always crash.

3. Ran a command CHKDSK which identified major issues; after two or three runs CHKDSK was able to repair issues, and the drive stabilized dramatically. Nevertheless, I had already ordered replacements, and decided to proceed with upgrade since I was running out of space and the drive proved unreliable already.

4. I carefully removed the old SSD from motherboard, and installed two drives: in position 0, I installed a western digital WD_BLACK SN850X 4TB, and in position 1, I installed a WD Green SN350 2TB drive. both drives have been consistently recognized by the bios (see below).

5. When laptop boots up, it seemed the BIOS had reset, and initially would give no bootable drive error. Rebooted with Win11 USB drive created with Media Creation Tool (USB boot drive setting), however received BSOD Stop error "Kernel Security Check Failure" (from now on, BSOD-KSCF for short).
6. I'm running the latest Acer BIOS, version 1.1 with the annoyingly modern GUI (I miss the old text based BIOS). I scoured the Acer community and several online sources to better understand this BIOS, and there is scant little, but I was able to deduce some steps needed (see #7 below).

7. After initial failure in #5 above was replicated a few times, I followed all steps and still kept getting BSOD-KSCF.

8. Before writing this, I reset Bios to default configuration, restarted, still got BSOD-KSCF.

9. After clean reset to default configuration, I effected the following changes again, specifically:      

-turned OFF Fast Boot      

-turned OFF TBM(TCM)      

-turned OFF Secure Boot (after setting up a supervisory password for the BIOS).

After #9. I saved all settings, exited, and still receive BSOD-KSCF error with any one of the three Win11 USB drives plugged in.
The above has been replicated several times to ensure I didn't miss anything, and as I stated, the drives are mounted and visible to the OS... I just cannot get the USB drive to boot, and cannot get past the BSOD.

PLEASE HELP...what am I missing or what obscure setting or magic key should I turn?
Thanks for any and all support.

[Edited the thread to add model name]

Best Answers

  • Commodore_1995#
    Commodore_1995# ACE Posts: 98,327 Trailblazer
    Answer ✓

    Hello! When you press ctrl+s in the main bios tab, does an option appear called sata mode or vmd controller? If the vmd controller option appears, just disable it. If the sata mode option appears, change it to ahci mode and then press f10 to save and exit. I also advise activating the f12bootmenu and booting the usb drive, pressing f12 before the acer logo.

    Oi! Eu não sou sou a cortana! Mas estou aqui para ajudar! Hi! I'm not the cortana! But I'm here to help!
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                                                     egydiocoelho Trailblazer
     
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  • Commodore_1995#
    Commodore_1995# ACE Posts: 98,327 Trailblazer
    Answer ✓

    I'm a genius. Lol! Just kidding. Glad you solved the problem.

    Oi! Eu não sou sou a cortana! Mas estou aqui para ajudar! Hi! I'm not the cortana! But I'm here to help!
    Se você gostou da minha resposta, marque como solução clicando em sim! If you liked my answer, mark it as a solution by clicking on yes!
    Aceite somente a resposta que ajudou a solucionar o seu problema! Please accept only the response that helped to solve your problem!
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                                                     egydiocoelho Trailblazer
     
    ProductKey clique aqui para descobrir o serial do windows! click here to discover the windows serial!
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  • Commodore_1995#
    Commodore_1995# ACE Posts: 98,327 Trailblazer
    Answer ✓

    You can leave sata mode in ahci. Now, if you intend to mount a raid 0 to unite the two ssds that are installed, you need to change the sata mode to optane with raid. If you intend to create a raid 0, before changing sata mode in bios, enable safeboot in msconfig to avoid blue screen problems.

    Oi! Eu não sou sou a cortana! Mas estou aqui para ajudar! Hi! I'm not the cortana! But I'm here to help!
    Se você gostou da minha resposta, marque como solução clicando em sim! If you liked my answer, mark it as a solution by clicking on yes!
    Aceite somente a resposta que ajudou a solucionar o seu problema! Please accept only the response that helped to solve your problem!
    Detection tool click here to find the serial number or partnumber of your model!                                                          
                                                      
                                                     egydiocoelho Trailblazer
     
    ProductKey clique aqui para descobrir o serial do windows! click here to discover the windows serial!
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Answers

  • MarcKMythall
    MarcKMythall Member Posts: 5

    Tinkerer

    LATEST UPDATE:

    Microsoft has corrected that TPM(TCM) and Secure Boot both needed to be on. updated BIOS, same results BSOD same.

    I'm adding my screenshots of the BIOS configuration.

    Also, Microsoft support has determined that since the USB drive won't properly boot and I don't get their intial screen with options to install, that this is "a Manufacturer Issue, please follow up with Acer". ugh.

    Any help or insight is greatly appreciated.

    Video of bootup BSOD error, below, that was shared with Microsoft.

  • TigerFury
    TigerFury Member Posts: 9

    Tinkerer

    edited May 2023

    hi just going from what i can see in your pictures it looks like you still have tpm turned off and the error that its producing can be driver related, might even be a faulty driver for one of the ssd's you've installed. Have you tried cloning your old drive? it might be easier to do that and just reset the pc if needed

  • MarcKMythall
    MarcKMythall Member Posts: 5

    Tinkerer

    Thank you TigerFury.

    TPM is turned on. The pic only shows the part of the screen about "TPM State" which is another setting. I've tried both with TPM State enabled and disabled. all same, results in BSOD-KSCF. I left TPM State 'disabled', as that is the default when the BIOS is reset to factory presets.

    As for drivers, if there are specific troubleshooting steps I should be doing, I'm all ears.

    Lastly, on drives: the whole point at this stage is I REALLY DO NOT WANT TO CRACK OPEN the laptop again… if you've seen a video of this, you understand why. to say it is intimidating is an understatement. As of now, the BIOS seems to recognize both new drives. Given that the original SSD had a bunch of errors and possible corruption I'd rather NOT clone anything from it. I had "installed" the old SSD in an external enclosure made by SSK which allows me to access that old SSD drive via USB; I even tried to boot from that old drive in the enclosure but I think the external enclosure somehow prevents that. As an absolute last resort, I might consider cloning the old SSD on the the WD Green in slot 1 to see if that would boot… this assumes I have some tool that can do that at the BIOS level since there is no OS installed on the machine.

    So, in summary, I'm hoping if an Acer staffer or community expert can sift through this information and provide detailed troubleshooting or configuration instructions to try. IN SIMPLE TERMS, HOW DO I GO ABOUT BOOTING WINDOWS INSTALL MEDIA FROM USB TO INSTALL ON NEW BLANK SSD WITH THE OEM SSD REMOVED?

  • TigerFury
    TigerFury Member Posts: 9

    Tinkerer

    this is default out of the factory so i would leave tpm state enabled, i would also suggest turning off Intel VTD at least until you have installed win 11. Win 11 doesn't like Intel VTD and see's that as a vulnerability for memory access and its only useful if you plan on using a VM like ldplayer or bluestacks etc. I have seen a tear down video and see why you wouldn't want to take it apart again but it might be your only choice if its crashing before you see the install windows option

  • Commodore_1995#
    Commodore_1995# ACE Posts: 98,327 Trailblazer
    Answer ✓

    Hello! When you press ctrl+s in the main bios tab, does an option appear called sata mode or vmd controller? If the vmd controller option appears, just disable it. If the sata mode option appears, change it to ahci mode and then press f10 to save and exit. I also advise activating the f12bootmenu and booting the usb drive, pressing f12 before the acer logo.

    Oi! Eu não sou sou a cortana! Mas estou aqui para ajudar! Hi! I'm not the cortana! But I'm here to help!
    Se você gostou da minha resposta, marque como solução clicando em sim! If you liked my answer, mark it as a solution by clicking on yes!
    Aceite somente a resposta que ajudou a solucionar o seu problema! Please accept only the response that helped to solve your problem!
    Detection tool click here to find the serial number or partnumber of your model!                                                          
                                                      
                                                     egydiocoelho Trailblazer
     
    ProductKey clique aqui para descobrir o serial do windows! click here to discover the windows serial!
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  • Changing the sata mode or disabling the vmd controller did the trick?

    Oi! Eu não sou sou a cortana! Mas estou aqui para ajudar! Hi! I'm not the cortana! But I'm here to help!
    Se você gostou da minha resposta, marque como solução clicando em sim! If you liked my answer, mark it as a solution by clicking on yes!
    Aceite somente a resposta que ajudou a solucionar o seu problema! Please accept only the response that helped to solve your problem!
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                                                     egydiocoelho Trailblazer
     
    ProductKey clique aqui para descobrir o serial do windows! click here to discover the windows serial!
    Para usuários da comunidade inglesa, espanhola, francesa e alemã, usarei o google tradutor! :)
    For users of the English, Spanish, French and German community, I will be using google translator! :) 
  • MarcKMythall
    MarcKMythall Member Posts: 5

    Tinkerer

    OMG.

    Several excruciating days and two communities later, egydiocoelho solves it!!

    There WAS a secret option (needed the cntlr+s to enable TrueSight and see it). No VMD option but switching the SATA mode was the fix!!! Senior MSFT person should have known that. I'll have to post your solution to the Microsoft help community too.

    THANK YOU

  • Commodore_1995#
    Commodore_1995# ACE Posts: 98,327 Trailblazer
    Answer ✓

    I'm a genius. Lol! Just kidding. Glad you solved the problem.

    Oi! Eu não sou sou a cortana! Mas estou aqui para ajudar! Hi! I'm not the cortana! But I'm here to help!
    Se você gostou da minha resposta, marque como solução clicando em sim! If you liked my answer, mark it as a solution by clicking on yes!
    Aceite somente a resposta que ajudou a solucionar o seu problema! Please accept only the response that helped to solve your problem!
    Detection tool click here to find the serial number or partnumber of your model!                                                          
                                                      
                                                     egydiocoelho Trailblazer
     
    ProductKey clique aqui para descobrir o serial do windows! click here to discover the windows serial!
    Para usuários da comunidade inglesa, espanhola, francesa e alemã, usarei o google tradutor! :)
    For users of the English, Spanish, French and German community, I will be using google translator! :) 
  • MarcKMythall
    MarcKMythall Member Posts: 5

    Tinkerer

    You ate a genius! My genius for the year!!!

    Hey genius, should I change the sata setting back to raid, which is on the motherboard I believe, or leave it as is? I'm assuming change would only be AFTER full win11 install.

  • Commodore_1995#
    Commodore_1995# ACE Posts: 98,327 Trailblazer
    Answer ✓

    You can leave sata mode in ahci. Now, if you intend to mount a raid 0 to unite the two ssds that are installed, you need to change the sata mode to optane with raid. If you intend to create a raid 0, before changing sata mode in bios, enable safeboot in msconfig to avoid blue screen problems.

    Oi! Eu não sou sou a cortana! Mas estou aqui para ajudar! Hi! I'm not the cortana! But I'm here to help!
    Se você gostou da minha resposta, marque como solução clicando em sim! If you liked my answer, mark it as a solution by clicking on yes!
    Aceite somente a resposta que ajudou a solucionar o seu problema! Please accept only the response that helped to solve your problem!
    Detection tool click here to find the serial number or partnumber of your model!                                                          
                                                      
                                                     egydiocoelho Trailblazer
     
    ProductKey clique aqui para descobrir o serial do windows! click here to discover the windows serial!
    Para usuários da comunidade inglesa, espanhola, francesa e alemã, usarei o google tradutor! :)
    For users of the English, Spanish, French and German community, I will be using google translator! :) 
  • TigerFury
    TigerFury Member Posts: 9

    Tinkerer

    didn't see that in the bios but i'm shocked that raid would be the default option but i think i had an alienware that did the same years ago, although on the alienware the option was right there lol

  • This option appears when you press ctrl+s in the main bios tab.

    Oi! Eu não sou sou a cortana! Mas estou aqui para ajudar! Hi! I'm not the cortana! But I'm here to help!
    Se você gostou da minha resposta, marque como solução clicando em sim! If you liked my answer, mark it as a solution by clicking on yes!
    Aceite somente a resposta que ajudou a solucionar o seu problema! Please accept only the response that helped to solve your problem!
    Detection tool click here to find the serial number or partnumber of your model!                                                          
                                                      
                                                     egydiocoelho Trailblazer
     
    ProductKey clique aqui para descobrir o serial do windows! click here to discover the windows serial!
    Para usuários da comunidade inglesa, espanhola, francesa e alemã, usarei o google tradutor! :)
    For users of the English, Spanish, French and German community, I will be using google translator! :)