Defective Asus GTX1070

TL;DR

I recently purchased an Asus GTX1070 which booted, POST'd (sort of) but would not load Windows 10. It was defective and a replacement sorted it out.

The most important symptom is the BIOS/UEFI POST being in the wrong (non-native) resolution.

Long version:

I tried 30+ hours of changing settings, trying different things.

  • turning off Windows Fast Boot
  • UEFI only booting
  • non-UEFI legacy / compatibility only booting
  • Isolating the hardware in two machines to bare minimum (disconnecting SATA devices etc)
  • Two fresh installs of Windows 10
  • At least 4 different versions of the Nvidia Drivers, using DDU to uninstall the previous drivers in Safe Mode between installs.
  • Modifying window's power settings to maximum performance
  • turning off onboard Audio in BIOS
  • turning off VT-d in BIOS
  • running on a known-good installation of Windows 10, as well as a fresh install (twice)
  • resetting BIOS to defaults by clearing the RTC clock jumper and the RTC battery
  • Pulling and replacing RAM
  • Upgrading the Motherboard BIOS on both tested machines to the latest official bios versions.
  • Checking with the official ASUS tool that the Video Card VBIOS was up-to-date (which it was)
  • Updating Windows 10 to version 1709 (Fall Creator edition)
  • Changing the monitors, and trying different HDMI and DVI-D cables.
Nothing worked to alter the outcome.

In the end it was just defective card.

My motherboards were an Asus P8Z68-M PRO and a Asus H97-M Plus

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