- Aug 25, 2001
- 56,227
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I think I've finally fried (partially) my first DeskMini unit. It's on my desk, near a door, near some rugs.
Well, I've walked by, and touched it, and zapped it a few times, on the chassis cover.
It has never rebooted or crashed from doing that.
However, one time I saw a temporary blob on my 4K UHD TV that appeared and disappeared.
A relative stopped by today, with a furry coat on. I fear that they touched the DeskMini somehow and zapped it, too.
Because, when I came out to my living room and looked at it, the HDD light was pulsing regularly, and when I woke up the monitor, I was in Linux. Which means, the DeskMini rebooted, but also, could NOT see my primary M.2 PCI-E SSD.
In fact, I rebooted, went into BIOS, and it wasn't showing up. I finally rebooted, used F11 for the Boot Menu, and selected "Windows Boot Manager", and then it booted off of the M.2 drive. Once in Windows, I rebooted, and then the BIOS saw the M.2 SSD again. Weird.
If that was the only problem, I wouldn't mind too much.
But now, I have no audio out, from either the DisplayPort,or the native HDMI port.
When I go to Device Manager, under System Devices, High Definition Audio Controller is Disabled, due to a Code 10. Both in Win7 Pro SP1 64-bit as well as Win10 Pro 64-bit 1607.
Even a full power-off, and then power-on, of both the DeskMini as well as the 4K UHD TV, doesn't help.
(However, I haven't tried moving the DeskMini to the other 4K UHD TV, to see if it works there.)
I postulated, when I first "zapped" my DeskMini, that it wasn't properly grounded from static, because the power cord is a two-conductor, without a chassis ground. I might be mistaken, it might have a third conductor, maybe. I haven't taken a close look.
But when I zapped it the first few times, and it didn't crash or reboot, I figured that it was OK.
Now, it's not.
One other thing, I used Intel's USB3.0 injector for Win7 64-bit on this rig, some time ago, and it wanted permission to run "Flash_Utility.exe". Which could have been for the flash drive creation, OR, it could have been a BIOS/chipset flash, for Intel's NUC, to "correct" an HDMI audio firmware issue. I know that my DeskMini "paused" for a second when running the thing, which makes me wonder if it did flash something NUC-related to my DeskMini, and maybe, that's why the HD Audio Controller isn't working anymore.
I guess I could re-flash the ASRock BIOS, maybe, to try to fix it.
I just can't fathom that I've not powered off the DeskMini since I ran that Flash_Utility.exe. Maybe I haven't.
I tried Internet Flash, but it just says my BIOS is up-to-date.
Edit: Just tried downloading the 7.00 BIOS for the DeskMini, and flashed it, and it didn't do anything. It updated the UEFI, but not the ME firmware, like it did the first time that I updated it.
Edit: This is the tool that I ran, on Win7 64-bit, that ran "Flash_Utility.exe", or wanted Admin permission for it.
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/25476/Windows-7-USB-3-0-Creator-Utility
Well, I've walked by, and touched it, and zapped it a few times, on the chassis cover.
It has never rebooted or crashed from doing that.
However, one time I saw a temporary blob on my 4K UHD TV that appeared and disappeared.
A relative stopped by today, with a furry coat on. I fear that they touched the DeskMini somehow and zapped it, too.
Because, when I came out to my living room and looked at it, the HDD light was pulsing regularly, and when I woke up the monitor, I was in Linux. Which means, the DeskMini rebooted, but also, could NOT see my primary M.2 PCI-E SSD.
In fact, I rebooted, went into BIOS, and it wasn't showing up. I finally rebooted, used F11 for the Boot Menu, and selected "Windows Boot Manager", and then it booted off of the M.2 drive. Once in Windows, I rebooted, and then the BIOS saw the M.2 SSD again. Weird.
If that was the only problem, I wouldn't mind too much.
But now, I have no audio out, from either the DisplayPort,or the native HDMI port.
When I go to Device Manager, under System Devices, High Definition Audio Controller is Disabled, due to a Code 10. Both in Win7 Pro SP1 64-bit as well as Win10 Pro 64-bit 1607.
Even a full power-off, and then power-on, of both the DeskMini as well as the 4K UHD TV, doesn't help.
(However, I haven't tried moving the DeskMini to the other 4K UHD TV, to see if it works there.)
I postulated, when I first "zapped" my DeskMini, that it wasn't properly grounded from static, because the power cord is a two-conductor, without a chassis ground. I might be mistaken, it might have a third conductor, maybe. I haven't taken a close look.
But when I zapped it the first few times, and it didn't crash or reboot, I figured that it was OK.
Now, it's not.
One other thing, I used Intel's USB3.0 injector for Win7 64-bit on this rig, some time ago, and it wanted permission to run "Flash_Utility.exe". Which could have been for the flash drive creation, OR, it could have been a BIOS/chipset flash, for Intel's NUC, to "correct" an HDMI audio firmware issue. I know that my DeskMini "paused" for a second when running the thing, which makes me wonder if it did flash something NUC-related to my DeskMini, and maybe, that's why the HD Audio Controller isn't working anymore.
I guess I could re-flash the ASRock BIOS, maybe, to try to fix it.
I just can't fathom that I've not powered off the DeskMini since I ran that Flash_Utility.exe. Maybe I haven't.
I tried Internet Flash, but it just says my BIOS is up-to-date.
Edit: Just tried downloading the 7.00 BIOS for the DeskMini, and flashed it, and it didn't do anything. It updated the UEFI, but not the ME firmware, like it did the first time that I updated it.
Edit: This is the tool that I ran, on Win7 64-bit, that ran "Flash_Utility.exe", or wanted Admin permission for it.
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/25476/Windows-7-USB-3-0-Creator-Utility
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