UAC and Nvidia issues.

[JohnTemp]

Hi all, just received a new Octane 3 PC with 4Ghz intel and 1080 GTX GPU.

I've replaced the standard HD with two 512 SSD's and using an external CDROM drive switched of UFC? in the bios to enable booting from a CD with the Windows 10 CD sent with the machine and hit F7 to choose the install path.

This is where a few issues creep in.

First, despite connecting a mouse or using the track pad I can't select any of the menu choices for language. No tab or directional arrows, only enter works so had to work round this by changing US language and time settings after install. No big deal.

Secondly, installed the various drivers, intel, Wlan, audio etc: - I get the following error when I try to install the VGA driver. 'Nvidia installation is not compatible with this version of windows.' I've tried installing the international Nvidia driver and get the same message.

Thirdly, I can't go online using Microsoft Edge. When launching it say's something like Microsoft Edge can't start please change UAC settings. If I go to User Account Control settings, it is already set at the bottom, so is already switched off. If I slide it up to medium or high the screen resolution immediately jumps from native 1080p too 640? Naturally I'm now becoming a bit suspicious the UAC and Nvidia issue are related in some way and there is a compatibility problem with the tech and the windows version.

I would like to upgrade to latest windows version, but again it say's its fully up to date.

Any thoughts, this is driving me a bit mental.

 

[ubuysa]

I think from all this that you didn't buy the laptop with Windows 10 pre-installed but you're installing your own copy of Windows? Since you mention the Edge browser you must be installing Windows 10, presumably from a downloaded ISO file?

It does rather sound as through the installation from and external optical drive has not been terribly successful, it sounds to be corrupted in some way. I think it would be better to make a bootable USB stick from the Windows 10 ISO rather than a DVD, not only will this avoid any issues with the external optical drive but the USB stick will be faster.

I think when you mention UFC in the BIOS I think you're talking about UEFI and secureboot? It should be possible in your BIOS to keep UEFI and secureboot and still enable legacy boot from the DVD or USB stick. That said, you might want to turn of both UEFI and secureboot (since you have no drives over 2TB) and use legacy boot and MBR. You'll need to read your motherboard manual carefully though to be sure you've turned UEFI and secureboot off fully and properly enabled legacy boot. In my BIOS that requires several changes.

In either case (UEFI and legacy BIOS) you want to choose a custom install and delete ALL the partitions on your system drive, then click the 'New' button. If you're using UEFI all the required partitions will be created to fill the drive, if you're using legacy boot you'll get one partition to fill the drive and a tiny system reserved one. In both cases select the largest partition on the drive and install Windows into that.

I suspect that all of your many other issues are because Windows is not installing properly, this may be because UEFI/secureboot is not turned off or on properly in your BIOS and/or because of issues with the external optical drive.

 

[Rakk]

I've replaced the standard HD with two 512 SSD's and using an external CDROM drive switched of UFC? in the bios to enable booting from a CD with the Windows 10 CD sent with the machine and hit F7 to choose the install path.

I think from all this that you didn't buy the laptop with Windows 10 pre-installed but you're installing your own copy of Windows? Since you mention the Edge browser you must be installing Windows 10, presumably from a downloaded ISO file?

The way I read it however is that he got Win10 with the PC (on a DVD) and it was installed, but he's replaced the installed HDD with his own SSDs and that is where he's trying to install Windows onto

 

[JohnTemp]

thanks for the response.

I did buy the laptop with windows 10 installed. However this was on a standard 2.5 hd. I have two 2.5 SSD's already.

I removed the standard drive and have replaced with both SSD's.

These are the following steps I have taken.

1. Install formatted SSD's.
2. Disabled UEFI in bios as instructed by tech support.
3. Connected external optical drive via USB.
4. Inserted Windows 10 disc supplied with the PCSpecialist consignment.
5. Hit f7 and boot from drive.
6. Install windows 10 installation from provided CD.

All the issues I'm having have occurred having done the above steps.

If I keep UEFI on I cannot see the optical drive in the list when in alternate boot mode. Only the two SSD's and network are visible. Secure boot is also disabled.

I could try installing from USB, but I still can't see how this helps as the image will be the same and I will still have to switch of UEFI and secure boot.

 

[JohnTemp]

The way I read it however is that he got Win10 with the PC (on a DVD) and it was installed, but he's replaced the installed HDD with his own SSDs and that is where he's trying to install Windows onto

Yes correct.

 

[ubuysa]

thanks for the response.

I did buy the laptop with windows 10 installed. However this was on a standard 2.5 hd. I have two 2.5 SSD's already.

I removed the standard drive and have replaced with both SSD's.

These are the following steps I have taken.

1. Install formatted SSD's.
2. Disabled UEFI in bios as instructed by tech support.
3. Connected external optical drive via USB.
4. Inserted Windows 10 disc supplied with the PCSpecialist consignment.
5. Hit f7 and boot from drive.
6. Install windows 10 installation from provided CD.

All the issues I'm having have occurred having done the above steps.

If I keep UEFI on I cannot see the optical drive in the list when in alternate boot mode. Only the two SSD's and network are visible. Secure boot is also disabled.

I could try installing from USB, but I still can't see how this helps as the image will be the same and I will still have to switch of UEFI and secure boot.

Yes correct.

Then I'd suspect the optical drive or possibly the install disk you have. I would download a Windows 10 ISO file and then use Rufus to make a bootable USB installation stick. If you really want to use the existing installation DVD to make a USB installation stick you could try this (it should also work for Windows 10)

 

[JohnTemp]

Thanks all, will give this a go.

 

[ubuysa]

Thanks all, will give this a go.

I will confess to being puzzled by your issues and I really don't know what's causing them. What I'm suggesting you do will eliminate the two most likely culprits; the external optical drive and your Windows installation disk. By downloading a new copy of Windows 10 you eliminate your installation disk and by using a USB stick you eliminate the optical drive. If you still can't install Windows properly I'd suspect one (or both) of the SSDs and suggest you put the HDD back and see whether you can install Windows to that.

 

[JohnTemp]

Update.

Well I took advice from ubuysa bought a cheap USB, formatted to FAT32, created a partition, used the MS tool for building a Win 10 64 bit installer, made sure the language and time was set for UK and then reset the bios on the laptop too defaults. Saved, hit F7, Windows installed on the new SSD in about 5 mins. So far everything has pretty much worked out.

Only real niggle I have at the moment is despite being able to install the Nvidia driver from the tools CD supplied with the laptop, if I now try and install the latest 64 bit UK or International driver for the laptop both mobile and desktop versions I get a message telling me the Nvidia driver is not compatible. Also if I run the Nvidia tool in order to search for the right driver (In Firefox, seems Java is not compatible in MS Edge or Chrome) I get please install driver version from your manufacturer. or driver already up to date despite it being from August.

Anyone got any thoughts on how to get round this. Don't think I've ever had so much grief with a new computer.

 

[JohnTemp]

Update 2.

I rolled back the last driver install from the supplied disk and the new notebook driver worked! Go fig?

So finally, it seems by downloading latest version of windows and the latest version of nvidia driver first and just leaving the supplied disks as coasters works!

My wife affectionately calls the new laptop a hairdryer. It sure does make some noise. Happy days.

 

[ubuysa]

If you visit the driver download section of the NVIDIA website at https://www.nvidia.co.uk/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-uk you can enter the details of your GPU and OS version and it will provide a link to telatest driver (and all previous ones too).

Alternatively, on the same page, you can have your laptop searched for the most appropriate NVIDIA driver.

 

[JohnTemp]

If you visit the driver download section of the NVIDIA website at https://www.nvidia.co.uk/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-uk you can enter the details of your GPU and OS version and it will provide a link to telatest driver (and all previous ones too).

Alternatively, on the same page, you can have your laptop searched for the most appropriate NVIDIA driver.

Yep and of course the Nvidia update tool. It was inspite of doing the above I was still having a problem. Rolling back the version from the supplied CD fixed all this. Thanks anyway for the advice.