Windows 10/11 or BIOS problems

Hi, I'm posting here because I have a series of very specific problems that I just cannot find a solution to, no matter how many google searches I make or different solutions I try. I'm not certain whether this issue is Windows specific, or BIOS/ NVMe settings. I hope I'm posting in the right place.

First my specs:
Operating System
Windows 11 Home 64-bit / Windows 10 Home 64-bit
CPU
Intel Core i5 9600K @ 3.70GHz
Coffee Lake 14nm Technology
RAM
32.0GB Dual-Channel Unknown @ 1069MHz (15-15-15-36)
Motherboard
ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. PRIME Z370-A II (LGA1151)
Graphics
PG279QE (2560x1440@59Hz)
Acer H274HL (1920x1080@60Hz)
4095MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (ASUStek Computer Inc)
Storage
931GB Crucial CT1000MX500SSD1 (SATA (SSD))
1863GB Crucial CT2000P5PSSD8 (Unknown (SSD))

I bought a brand new crucial 2TB NVME SSD and decided that, since I was going to be doing a fresh install anyway, may as well upgrade to windows 11 at the same time. During install, I encountered a lot of issues in my bios with a) configuring secure boot to be windows 11 compatible and b) configuring the bios to boot from NVME - it would always default to the SATA SSD which have plugged in as it has all my old files on it.

I eventually found a configuration which would boot, but I had the following problems which are really frustrating to deal with.
The problems are:

1) Desktop resolution not saved - every time my computer boots up, it detects my ASUS ROG PG279E running at 1440p as if it has just been plugged in for the first time, it runs at a low resolution (maybe 720p?) until I log in, then after a few minutes it detects the monitor, I get a notification saying "new gsync compatible device detected" and then it switches to 1440p. I'm not convinced that the 144hz gysync is actually working properly as it seems to reset to default every reboot. Additionally, it will occasionally default to the speakers in the monitor as my sound device, so I have to keep resetting and disabling those as well.
2) Long boot times - specifically, windows boots up, shows me the log in screen (sometimes it gets my custom log in screen, but most of the time it shows the default background), I can log in very quickly, but then after logging in it takes forever for the windows desktop, start menu and task bar to become interactive so I can use the computer (this can be intermittent) - this doesn't seem entirely related to the desktop resolution problem, as this persists for some time after that resolves itself. Sometimes the desktop seems to completely freeze, not even ctrl+alt+del will work, so I have to hard restart the computer. (note: the computer reports a very fast boot time in software, but this timing doesnt reflect the time it takes to actually become useable.
3) my mouse doesn't always work on boot up, I frequently have to unplug it and plug it back in to make it work. It's a Corsair Scimitar MMO mouse. Additionally, even if the mouse does work the side buttons don't always work, which only seems resolvable by reboot (sometimes several reboots) - I've noticed the mouse will fail sometimes just by plugging and unplugging different USB devices. the CORSAIR software is always running, restarting the software or changing the mouse profiles doesnt work, only restarting the computer works.
I had all of the same hardware config when I was on Windows 10 and had none of these issues, so only three things have changed: 1)bios boot settings, 2) NVME drive 3) windows 11.

I decided to roll back to Windows 10, so I did a clean install of Windows 10 and I also used a setting in my bios to restore default settings, but the exact same problems persist in Windows 10 now as well - I need to stress I ran this set up for years on windows 10 with none of these issues, so the only changes are installing an NVME drive and changing the bios settings to get it to boot from NVMe, but I have no idea how that resulted in these errors or how to fix it now.

Bruce said:

sorry that no-one has given this any traction yet.
let's get the ball rolling...

this will be a bugger, but you need to only change one thing at a time.
so currently you are back to Win10 but on the new NVMe drive - correct?

I would reinstall Win10 on the old SSD, backing up your data first!
this will test your installation process using an OS and drive that things used to work on.

then install Win10 on the new NVMe drive, with the SSD unplugged.
this will test the same process but on the new drive, hopefully highlighting it as the culprit.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply,

So... embarrassing oversight on my part but I realised I wasn't on the latest version of the BIOS. I had downloaded the ASUS "ezupdate" tool because I was nervous about flashing the BIOS, and it did a check which told me "no need to update the environment" which I took to mean "you're on the latest version" - this turned out to be wrong, I was on version 1202 and there was a version 3004 on the website. So I updated the BIOS to 3004 (with a few headaches - but got there in the end) and it seems now to be working ok on Win 10. Hard to tell because some issues are intermittent, but the boots have been pretty solid the last few days. I'm going to give it a week or so and see. I think I'll stay on Win 10 for the foreseeable as 11 was a pain.

Any further issues and I'll try the old SSD again, on its own, as you suggest.