Help please! ~The following configuration options were auto updated

Not having any luck here...

Woke up to find this:


I then hit F1 and the computer stalled. Manually pushed the power button. After turning back on, this popped up:


Hit F1 once again and the PC loaded fine.


Thoughts?

alphanumeric said:

If Windows isn't doing it, my guess is a failing motherboard, or maybe a failing hard drive? Just a guess though? Look for any bulged capacitors or any with brown goop on them. How old is this motherboard? If you have the BIOS quick boot enabled, try switching it off and see what happens.
If it is Windows doing it, its a factory installed utility or something like that.

I'll check out all of the hard drives but I'm pretty sure they're spotless. No clue on the motherboard date. Like I said, this was a refurbished tower purchased from Staples. I never have any issues with refurbished products so no reason not to try this tower. I'll double check later in the day that I have quick boot turned off already. Pretty sure that there's no factory installed utility but again, I'll double check that as well.

I'll also see if I have any spare cables around.

dalchina said:

Hi, researching the message gives a lot of results.
E.g.
Turn Off Intel® Boot Agent or Prevent It from Running
How Intel® Boot Agent works
The Intel® Boot Agent is software that allows your networked client computer to boot using an image on a remote server. PC vendors can implement the Intel Boot Agent to accommodate various environments and protocols. The BIOS inserts the Boot Agent into the list of boot devices. When the Boot Agent is ahead of any other bootable device in the list, it executes and tries to boot the computer over the network. To prevent the Boot Agent from executing, enter your systems BIOS configuration and find the boot device order settings. Move the boot agent down the list after the hard drive or the device you prefer to boot from.

Computer stuck at ? [Solved] - Windows XP - Windows XP
That means it's trying to boot from the network card as there is a boot-over-lan thing that can be done. It usually comes up when the hard drive is dead or not present so it tries to like boot from floppy, usb, dvd, hard drive and then LAN.


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I'm almost certain I have attempted those already, but I will double check later today.

Tried everything I can think of so my next step is to remove a hard one at a time to see if they are at fault. I will be giving up soon and just returning this tower if the issue continues.

I've encountered the same problem, but only *after* upgrading to Windows 10 pro 64-bit. Prior to that, I had 2 HP Compaq Elite 8000 SFF units running Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit, and *never* had this problem. I also never turn either of these units off; so it shouldn't be a battery issue; and one of them is actually on a UPS so even power flickers shouldn't disturb it. Both of them have displayed this symptom, though the one most frequently used seems to display it a bit more often.

BIOS is the latest available, 1.14. It was originally 1.13, but after encountering this problem I upgraded. No change.

While I don't know if these units were officially tested, I do know that Microsoft's Upgrade Assistant determined that the units are Windows 10 eligible and capable.

I've also noticed intermittent momentary "freezes" that have only started to occur post the Windows 10 upgrade. At that point, the disk activity indicator seems to be on solid.

There have also been 2 actual crashes. Neither of which recovered, nor output anything other than a blank "Black Screen of Death" from Windows itself.

Due to something else I found with Google, it would appear that the Windows 10 upgrade installs a SATA driver from 6/21/2006. If you look on HP's site for drivers for this unit, the latest one available there is from 2010. It's supposedly for Windows 7 and Windows 8, but allegedly most such drivers are also supposed to work with Windows 10. I've just upgraded to it, and if it solves or at least mitigates any of these problems I'll note that in this thread.

I'm not going to say it's 100% definitive as yet, but so far after upgrading the AHCI SATA driver to the latest available for Windows 8 on the HP website, I haven't had any of the crashes or the configuration changed messages; and the mini "freezes" seem a occur less frequently and for shorter duration. So maybe.....

Ok, it's been over a week now, with no repetition of the problem. So I would say it probably was the old, even possibly outdated, driver that came with Windows 10.

Based on previous experience, I should have experienced the problem at least twice since the time I updated the driver if the old driver hadn't been the culprit.