Ryzen CPU "no GOP" issue

badrobot · Jul 19, 2021

I am marking this thread "Solved" but feel free to add your thoughts.
GOP is indeed a GPU issue but will not affect the mobo once the mobo is set to desired mode (UEFI vs CSM). And the Windows OS won't mind at all... :)

Not sure if there will be future issues (not related to gaming), but for now it is running okay.

johnlgalt · Jul 19, 2021

I'm curious about one thing - is it really worth giving an OS that will constantly be updated over the course of the next several months, with obvious bugs and issues, to your cousin, who, from what is sounds like, isn't a techie?

I mean, I'm thinking your cousin is like my parents, not in terms of age, but in terms of computer proficiency, and sticking them with an Insiders build of any kind will never happen, as they would not be able to solve issues like I can.

Or am I mistaken?

badrobot · Jul 19, 2021

johnlgalt said:
I'm curious about one thing - is it really worth giving an OS that will constantly be updated over the course of the next several months, with obvious bugs and issues, to your cousin, who, from what is sounds like, isn't a techie?

I mean, I'm thinking your cousin is like my parents, not in terms of age, but in terms of computer proficiency, and sticking them with an Insiders build of any kind will never happen, as they would not be able to solve issues like I can.

Or am I mistaken?

No, this windows 11 is just for trial run. I will be transferring my cousin's current Windows 10 OS later when the M.2 SSD on order arrives. :) I am just trying to make this build future proof. :)

johnlgalt · Jul 19, 2021

Ahhh. Cool.

badrobot · Jul 19, 2021

Dru2 said:
GOP (Graphics Output Protocol) is on the GPU side. Anyway, been there with the GOP issue years ago. Basically if your GPU doesn't support UEFI (all modern GPU's do today), you'll have to enable CSM to get the card to work (work correctly). The problem with having CSM enabled is you can't use Secure Boot, and the system is somewhat running in legacy mode.

My experience came from the fact that my then AMD (Sapphire) R9 Fury which was supposed to be UEFI compliant wasn't because of a bad BIOS that was shipped with some AMD Fury/Fury X cards. AMD and some of their AIB board members (Sapphire) had to provide updated BIOS's to fix the issue.

Today that should never be an issue with modern day GPU's (unless a BIOS issue as discussed above). That said, a sure fire way to tell if a GPU supports UEFI is TechPowerUp's GPU-Z

View attachment 3484

The box your GPU came in may also state the card is UEFI compatible; however that may no longer be the case since we're years away from GPU cards not being UEFI compliant.

You are correct. It is on GPU. Fortunately, I have another GPU to use to skip the GOP issue when switching to UEFI mode.

The workaround is good for now. All that I needed is to set the mobo to UEFI and enable secure boot. And it is all done.

Dru2 · Jul 19, 2021

johnlgalt said:
The card is a very, very old AMD Radeon HD 6450 Specs (~10 years old) as noted in the OP. Also, as noted in the OP, he cannot switch away from CSM specifically because of the GOP issue.

Yes, I know that, which is why I said newer cards support UEFI (where older cards don't). Sorry if I wasn't clear enough.

And YES, if the card doesn't support UEFI, CSM (Compatibility Support Module) needs to be enabled to support none UEFI based devices (aka legacy BIOS compatibility) such as old none UEFI GPU cards.

Anyway badrobot seems to have a grasp on his issue so....

badrobot · Jul 19, 2021

johnlgalt said:
Ahhh. Cool.

I hope other geeks will find this work around useful. :)

Dru2 · Jul 19, 2021

@johnlgalt, Forgot the address this...

johnlgalt said:
But are you saying it won't allow the system to boot at all with both the old card and CSM switched off?

Honestly it depends on the motherboard, UEFI/BIOS, and board vendor so I have no definitive answer. That said...

In the case of my Gigabyte G1 Sniper 5 (Z87) board with the R9 Fury (no UEFI support because of a bad BIOS) and an Intel i7-4790K CPU, if I disabled CSM the system would boot but I would get no video output until I turned CSM back on in the BIOS.

But how can you do anything if you had no video to see anything? In my case I had to clear the CMOS so it would default back to CSM on. Once that happened I could now get video.

The other way around the video issue was to simply connect the monitor directly to the motherboard if you had a CPU with an integrated GPU (the i7-4790K did) and you'd get video (provided integrated GPU was on in the BIOS). This way you could now enter the BIOS, re-enable CSM, and power off the machine for about a minute, re-boot, and I would then get video from the Fury.

The main issue for me though is I could NOT enable secure boot as long as CSM was enabled. But if CSM was enabled my GPU didn't work!!! As stated it took a BIOS update from the card manufacture to solve the issue since the card was supposed to be UEFI compatible! Once the BIOS was updated, I could disable CSM.

Hope that clarifies :)

badrobot · Jul 19, 2021

Dru2 said:
@johnlgalt, Forgot the address this...

Honestly it depends on the motherboard, UEFI/BIOS, and board vendor so I have no definitive answer. That said...

In the case of my Gigabyte G1 Sniper 5 (Z87) board with the R9 Fury (no UEFI support because of a bad BIOS) and an Intel i7-4790K CPU, if I disabled CSM the system would boot but I would get no video output until I turned CSM back on in the BIOS.

But how can you do anything if you had no video to see anything? In my case I had to clear the CMOS so it would default back to CSM on. Once that happened I could now get video.

The other way around the video issue was to simply connect the monitor directly to the motherboard if you had a CPU with an integrated GPU (the i7-4790K did) and you'd get video (provided integrated GPU was on in the BIOS). This way you could now enter the BIOS, re-enable CSM, and power off the machine for about a minute, re-boot, and I would then get video from the Fury.

The main issue for me though is I could NOT enable secure boot as long as CSM was enabled. But if CSM was enabled my GPU didn't work!!! As stated it took a BIOS update from the card manufacture to solve the issue since the card was supposed to be UEFI compatible! Once the BIOS was updated, I could disable CSM.

Hope that clarifies :)

Exactly the same issue I had. I needed to enable secure boot.
The good thing about newer boards like what I am working on right now is it gives you a warning during a restart after enabling UEFI and it goes back to CSM by itself without having to clear the CMOS so it boots up right back to Windows in CSM mode.

johnlgalt · Jul 19, 2021

Dru2 said:
@johnlgalt, Forgot the address this...

Honestly it depends on the motherboard, UEFI/BIOS, and board vendor so I have no definitive answer. That said...

In the case of my Gigabyte G1 Sniper 5 (Z87) board with the R9 Fury (no UEFI support because of a bad BIOS) and an Intel i7-4790K CPU, if I disabled CSM the system would boot but I would get no video output until I turned CSM back on in the BIOS.

But how can you do anything if you had no video to see anything? In my case I had to clear the CMOS so it would default back to CSM on. Once that happened I could now get video.

The other way around the video issue was to simply connect the monitor directly to the motherboard if you had a CPU with an integrated GPU (the i7-4790K did) and you'd get video (provided integrated GPU was on in the BIOS). This way you could now enter the BIOS, re-enable CSM, and power off the machine for about a minute, re-boot, and I would then get video from the Fury.

The main issue for me though is I could NOT enable secure boot as long as CSM was enabled. But if CSM was enabled my GPU didn't work!!! As stated it took a BIOS update from the card manufacture to solve the issue since the card was supposed to be UEFI compatible! Once the BIOS was updated, I could disable CSM.

Hope that clarifies :)

I suspected as much. The reason I was asking was that I was hoping it would not render the machine unusable as BadRobot was about to try a workaround, and so I asked.

badrobot said:
Exactly the same issue I had. I needed to enable secure boot.
The good thing about newer boards like what I am working on right now is it gives you a warning during a restart after enabling UEFI and it goes back to CSM by itself without having to clear the CMOS so it boots up right back to Windows in CSM mode.

Luckily, the workaround actually worked. I was fully expecting this to not work because the UEFI would complain about the GOP regardless of what mode it was in.

badrobot · Jul 19, 2021

johnlgalt said:
.... it would not render the machine unusable...

I am not too worried about it since this is a new build. The mobo actually has a reset button to clear the CMOS. :)

johnlgalt · Jul 19, 2021

Yeah, mine too, heck my old one did as well.

This one has dual UEFI fw, too, which came in handy a while back when I flashed a βeta fw from MSI that went wonky with its settings. That is very nice to have, too.

Dru2 · Jul 19, 2021

badrobot said:
I am not too worried about it since this is a new build. The mobo actually has a reset button to clear the CMOS. :)

johnlgalt said:
Yeah, mine too, heck my old one did as well.

This one has dual UEFI fw, too, which came in handy a while back when I flashed a βeta fw from MSI that went wonky with its settings. That is very nice to have, too.

Unfortunately none of the Gigabyte boards I own have a clear CMOS button on the back I/O panel. Not to be confused with some Gigabyte boards that do have a button, but the ones I own don't. So for me, it's open the case time if I need to clear the CMOS

You would think the two high-end boards shown - G1 Sniper 5, and Z390 Aorus Xtreme would, but they don't. BTW, the X58A-UD5 was my first Gigabyte board, the Z390 Xtreme is my current board. The Z270X is currently in use in my backup system.

Dru2 · Jul 19, 2021

badrobot said:
Exactly the same issue I had. I needed to enable secure boot.
The good thing about newer boards like what I am working on right now is it gives you a warning during a restart after enabling UEFI and it goes back to CSM by itself without having to clear the CMOS so it boots up right back to Windows in CSM mode.

Yeah, I meant to say I never got the GOP warning you got in the BIOS. My card simply stopped working the moment I enabled CSM. Luckily for me, I was able to figure out what was going on since there was a discussion in the old AMD Sapphire R9 Fury/Fury X forums.

badrobot · Jul 22, 2021

Just a follow-up on this "GOP" issue.
Everything works fine in terms of booting up into the OS and everything within Windows is perfectly working.

I just noticed that when the BIOS is forced to UEFI using a supported GPU and when you switch to the unsupported GPU, you won't be able to get back to the BIOS or you won't be able to see the POST screen. After powering on the PC, it will just boot directly into the OS. If this doesn't bother you, everything will be fine. But after discussing this matter with my cousin, she then told me to do whatever I need to do. So I decided to look around Kijiji (Canadian version of Craiglist) and found an OEM Asus GTX 1050 for $90CAD which I was able to get for $75CAD after a quick negotiation. So, at the end I was able to convince my cousin to get a GPU that supports GOP.

Bottom line, the work around to set up the BIOS to UEFI (or disable CSM) using a different GPU works but you won't be able to boot to BIOS after switching back to the unsupported GPU.

After installing the supported GPU, there's nothing else to be done. It's just "swap n play" and it goes back to "normal" (POST screen and BIOS boot up).

Dru2 · Jul 22, 2021

badrobot said:
Just a follow-up on this "GOP" issue.
Everything works fine in terms of booting up into the OS and everything within Windows is perfectly working.

I'm a little confused...

I just noticed that when the BIOS is forced to UEFI using a supported GPU and when you switch to the unsupported GPU, you won't be able to get back to the BIOS or you won't be able to see the POST screen.

Yes, that was my experience as expressed in post #28 - no video output when CSM was disabled, and using a non-UEFI card.

but...

After powering on the PC, it will just boot directly into the OS

That basically sounds like "Fast Boot" is enabled and really has nothing to do with a GOP issue. If it was a GOP issue as above you would not have video so you'd never know if you were at the BIOS screen or in the OS.

Fast Boot can operate so fast as to bypass the BIOS screen and boot directly into the BIOS. Some motherboards (mine) have different levels of fast boot including "Ultra Fast" so it is possible you won't see a BIOS screen. With some vendor made PC's you may not have many choices - fast boot enabled will simply boot you straight into Windows.

That said, did you check to see if Fast Boot was enabled? And yes, depending on motherboard anything is possible, but...

Bottom line, the work around to set up the BIOS to UEFI (or disable CSM) using a different GPU works but you won't be able to boot to BIOS after switching back to the unsupported GPU.

I guess my question is why would you want to switch between a supported and unsupported GPU?

Sorry if I'm misunderstanding.

badrobot · Jul 22, 2021

Dru2 said:
I'm a little confused...

Yes, that was my experience as expressed in post #28 - no video output when CSM was disabled, and using a non-UEFI card.

but...

That basically sounds like "Fast Boot" is enabled and really has nothing to do with a GOP issue. If it was a GOP issue as above you would not have video so you'd never know if you were at the BIOS screen or in the OS.

Fast Boot can operate so fast as to bypass the BIOS screen and boot directly into the BIOS. Some motherboards (mine) have different levels of fast boot including "Ultra Fast" so it is possible you won't see a BIOS screen. With some vendor made PC's you may not have many choices - fast boot enabled will simply boot you straight into Windows.

That said, did you check to see if Fast Boot was enabled? And yes, depending on motherboard anything is possible, but...

I guess my question is why would you want to switch between a supported and unsupported GPU?

Sorry if I'm misunderstanding.

Basically, the GOP is only necessary so you can boot up to BIOS screen if it is set to EUFI. But you can still boot up into the OS. GOP is like the standard video driver that the BIOS uses to boot up into the BIOS screen. But it only works if the card has GOP for UEFI.
But if the BIOS is in CSM, you can boot up both into the BIOS and Windows withput GOP issue.

I am only using my supported GPU to set the BIOS to UEFI. This build is not mine. I am building it for someone. The owner wants to avoid buying a new GPU.

Ed Tittel · Jul 23, 2021

Thanks for all the useful info on this thread. Learning a few new tricks and grew some familiarity with the GOP/graphics output protocol considerations. For a minute there, I thought we were wandering into political territory (here in the US, GOP = Grand Old Party aka Republican Party. Too funny!)
=e=

badrobot · Jul 24, 2021

I never encountered GOP before and it's potential problems with Windows 11 which requires UEFI. But this is only an issue with CPU with no integrated video combined with an old GPU.

waltc · Jul 24, 2021

GOP is an old, old issue... :wink:

It specifically involves the graphics bus. Most people likely have graphics chips developed in the last several years and so there's no reason for them to have heard of it. I'm surprised so many have no idea what it is. Either talk your customer into buying a relatively recent AMD APU (Ryzen CPU with integrated graphics) or talk her into a new GPU. Based on what you've said, I'd go with a new APU, no question. Prices for GPUs now are utterly stupid--wouldn't even suggest it. BTW, Windows 11 hasn't been released yet and won't be available for commercial sale until October. You won't do the woman any favors by installing a beta with an expiration date! Do it with Win10--then when she's ready she can update to Win11, or pay you to do it at that time.