Zoostorm BIOS hell-bent on switching to W8 mode

[Revilogy]

Hi, again, so this time, we have some Zoostorm PCs in my school. They are all cracking little machines. But they seem to have a pretty nasty -but fixable- BIOS issue. Sometimes the machines state that the BIOS is corrupted, luckily they are based of Gigabytes DualBIOS system, sp they recover automatically, great, however they switch back to Windows 8 mode, which is a problem for a Windows 7 machine. Windows 8 mode prevents the system from booting up, as it is expecting a secure bootloader, which it doesn't have, so we have to go into BIOS, turn off secure boot, set the mode to Other OS and we set a password. It fixes the problem, but it is one of those issues that we could do without.

 

Do any of you have any reason as to why this may happen, or do you suffer with the same problems?

Cheers!

[rholt]

We have the same problem with our zoostorm pcs. The bios gets corupted then it resets itself to the defaults. Also it has a weird problem when reimaging. When reimaging using WDS it takes the pc name of a previously imaged pc, meaning I have to rename the pc back to its correct name. Then rejoin the pc which had its name stolen.

 

No answers though.

[synaesthesia]

Have they had Zoostorm's custom BIOS/UEFI flashed to them? (to get the logos on startup) - the boards default ones are normally fine, rarely an issue with Gigabyte kit, but can't say the Zoostorm ones are too reliable..

[free780]

We have ones that the date changes to random times. I think I've fixed it. I've not seen the issue with windows 8 mode.

[difinity]

I've seen similar with Gigabyte boards. Where they would revert to the default UEFI settings which meant they wouldn't boot.

[Revilogy]

They are untouched BIOSes, apart from the change that allows them to boot into the W7 bootloader. That's it. All Zoostorm computers we've had have done, well almost all. It is a pain in the a*se.

[rholt]

I believe I found the cause.

If you hold the power button in for about 10 -15 secs it causes the bios to reflash.

 

The power button are low in the case and the keyboard cables stick out a bit and can press against the power button when pushed back.

 

Best regards,

Robert

[synaesthesia]

Sure about that? Seems odd, especially as they use standard motherboards?

[Michael]

Interesting problem - I had a very similar issue with some new HPs recently. Boot in the BIOS, eventually work out where to disable Secure Boot, but then upon restart, you're required to enter a random 4 digit pin and then enter to authorise the change! Not quite sure why this is necessary!