Solution: HP OMEN 30L GT13 Desktop/Gaming PC does not boot anymore (CMOS reset, BIOS update, Omen logo, Windows, boot loop)

Symptom:

  • After switching on your HP Omen Desktop/Gaming PC, the boot process gets stuck at the “Omen” logo and Windows (the default OS) doesn’t get started anymore.
  • Power supply, LED lights, mainboard, RAM, GPU, hard disk and SSD are working and there’s no indication that anything would be wrong with them (IOW: The PC per se isn’t dead and seems to work).
  • The last time you used your PC, you might (or might not) have been prompted by an HP app (maybe the “HP Gaming Hub” or similar) to update some drivers or the firmware.

Reason/root cause:

HP apps apparently tend to mess with the CMOS and BIOS (e.g. automatically install updates), which may cause the HP Omen to get stuck the next time you try booting it.
Windows 10 would thus no longer start.

Solution:

Reset the PC’s CMOS.

How to reset the CMOS in a HP Omen 30L:

  1. Turn off the computer
    I.e. hold the power button for a couple of seconds until lights go out. For double safety, you could even quickly disconnect and reconnect the power cable.
  2. On your keyboard, press and hold the Windows + V keys
    To rule out any other problem, it’s best to plug your original HP USB keyboard into a USB plug directly on the PC.
  3. Still pressing those two keys, press and hold the Power button on the computer for roughly 1 second, then release the power button, but continue pressing and holding the Windows + V keys, until you see that the PC boots and doesn’t get stuck at the “Omen” logo again, instead, there might be notifications that further updates are being installed. Or you might get displayed a CMOS reset screen or hear beeping sounds.
    Note: According to HP, one has to press the power button 2-3 seconds in this step to trigger a CMOS reset. For my HP OMEN 30L GT13, that was apparently too long however, as it shut down the PC instead. Just try it a couple of times, until you finally see something happening again on the boot screen (but do not interrupt ongoing updates!).
  4. If there’s a message that there are pending updates, wait for them to finish.
    If you see a message that the CMOS was reset, hit ENTER to reboot the PC

Credits:

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Gaming-Desktops/Omen-30L-GT13-boot-loop-after-bios-update/td-p/8056991

Some more useful tricks about the HP Omen 30L GT13

Even though booting stopped at the Omen logo, I was still able to enter the BIOS setup upon rebooting. To enter the BIOS setup, do the following:

  1. Press and hold the F10 key on your keyboard (on the original HP USB keyboard, you’ll actually have to press the “Fn” key and the “F10” key at the same time, as F10 is a secondary functionality only)
  2. Press and hold the power button for 3 seconds till the PC turns off, then hit the power button again to start the PC while you’re holding the F10 key (Fn + F10)

First, as I was indeed suspecting that something might have gone wrong with an accidental (or intransparent) BIOS update, I tried following a hint that if one disconnects the hard drive (and/or SSD?), the mainboard of an HP Omen would allegedly automatically fall back to the previous BIOS version.
Therefore, I tried to disconnect the HDD and start my PC like that. It didn’t have any positive effect though, as the boot process kept getting stuck at the Omen logo.

BTW, to open the HP Omen 30L case, you simply press the big “INTERNAL ACCESS” button in the upper right corner of the back side of the PC, then tilt the (plexi-)glass window, then tilt it back towards the case a bit and lift the window up and off.

A further complication in my case was that I also use a fairly new and cutting edge Samsung 49″ super wide screen monitor (Samsung LC49RG90SSUXEN, supporting natively 5120×1440 pixels at a 120 Hz refresh rate) for that PC (and sometimes also with my MacBook Pro, via a special 8k USB-C to DisplayPort 1.4 cable).
My experiences with any sort of Samsung devices have been a mixed bag so far, so for one, I don’t really trust the quality of Samsung’s hardware, firmware or software (although I can’t complain about this display, it has been all fine so far and I’d highly recommend it for simulators). Secondly, I’ve plugged some essential USB devices (like the original HP USB keyboard and the receiver of my beloved Logitech G305 mouse) directly to the display’s USB hub, rather than to the PC itself. To rule out any weird error (e.g. like a boot process stopping because of a missing keyboard, caused by a faulty USB hub or connection), I’d generally recommend disconnecting “exotic” devices (like steering wheels, web cams, joysticks, controllers, ..) that could potentially cause troubles and plugin the essential devices (keyboard, mainly, maybe also the mouse) directly to the PC.

New Apple Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad is surprisingly good, even excellent!

Recently, I’ve managed to render my beloved old Apple Keyboard (full-size, with numeric keypad) useless – accidentally pouring half a glass of tap water over it was sufficient, unfortunately (due to the mineral ions in the tap water; distilled water wouldn’t have conducted electricity and thus wouldn’t have shorted circuits; on the other hand, drinking distilled water would probably shorten your life, so please don’t consider doing this).

Luckily, I could temporarily use a similarly old, compact Apple Bluetooth keyboard instead. As I really wouldn’t recommend that keyboard for everyday work though (poor, bubbly typing experience, odd placement of keys requiring weird function key combinations, no numeric keypad), I had to order a full-size keyboard as a replacement again, so I ordered one of the new Apple Magic Keyboards with a Numeric Keypad (in Space Gray and I really like that, but the colour doesn’t matter in regard to the typing experience):

https://www.apple.com/ch-de/shop/product/MRMH2SM/A/magic-keyboard-mit-ziffernblock-schweiz-space-grau

(above is the Swiss German version, US version: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MRMH2LL/A/magic-keyboard-with-numeric-keypad-us-english-space-gray)

I first thought that the even smaller lift of the keys (luckily with scissor and not butterfly switches) of this new keyboard would be very disturbing and that I’d have a hard time getting accustomed to it.

To my big surprise however I got accustomed to this new typing experience within a couple of hours already and now, after about 3 weeks of using it, I can confidently say: I love this new Apple Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad even much more than my previous, old Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad and wouldn’t want to switch back anymore.

Typing with it feels so immediate, so quick and so “raw” and “crunchy”, it’s literally almost addictive. I can type considerably faster with it than with the previous keyboard, let alone any regular IBM-type keyboards (although I like those too, for their build-quality, for the interesting history and stories behind them, for their customizability and standardization, for the bustling keyboard enthusiast scene around it). Further, typing for a prolonged time feels much less tiring for the fingers, hands and forearms.

It feels as if you had to work with a wobbly tool for quite some time, then all of a sudden, get a very precise and exact instrument, like e.g. skiing with racing skis vs. with allround skis. It’s pure joy!

The difference is difficult to describe, so I would recommend you rather go experience it yourself and judge for yourself. For me, it’s my most favourite keyboard so far.

I’m even thinking of getting one for the Windows workstation at work too, it’s that good.

FreeNAS 11.2/FreeBSD BTX boot loader 1.0: Very slow booting if “Legacy USB 3.0 Support” is enabled

Starting with version 11.2-RELEASE-U1, FreeNAS uses the FreeBSD BTX 1.0 boot loader instead of Grub (reason: The FreeBSD boot loader finally started supporting ZFS – years after Grub supported it, BTW).

Unlike Grub, the FreeBSD boot loader seems to have rather “suboptimal” support for storage devices (like USB sticks, USB drives) that are accessed using the legacy USB 3.0 mode at boot time. So, when I upgraded FreeNAS from 11.1-U7 to 11.2-RELEASE-U2 on my home-built ASRock FreeNAS E3C226D2I NAS appliance, booting FreeNAS from an internal 16 GB USB 3 stick took all of a sudden almost 30 minutes(!) instead of the usual 1-2 minutes.

As I found out by “trial & error” (or educated guessing, as some would say), the only reason for this huge slowdown was that “Legacy USB 3.0 Support” was enabled in the AMI BIOS (the effect is reproducible). So, just disable “Legacy USB 3.0 Support”[1] in the BIOS and FreeNAS >= 11.2 will boot quickly again.

[1] Note: There’s no need to disable “Legacy USB Support”, so you’ll still be able to use your USB 2 keyboard or mouse at boot time.

Windows 10 backups using Duplicati

“File History”, the built-in backup functionality of Windows 10, leaves a lot to be desired. It starts with a totally non-intuitive, “dumbed-down” user interface (displaying a backup size of 0 bytes, “backing up your data…” and an enabled “Back up now” button at the same time) and ends with lacking transparency (no information about progress and speed at all) and checkability in general.

Luckily, there’s a better open source alternative: Duplicati

Duplicati might not be the fastest backup solution either, but it has a good, intuitive GUI and wizard. And it’s fully transparent and highly adjustable.

Paragon CampTune – a handy tool to resize the Boot Camp partition

Recently I ran out of space on a Boot Camp partition with Windows 10 Pro. So I looked around for ways to make more space for Windows by shrinking the macOS partition and enlarging the Windows partition. Apple doesn’t officially support this in Boot Camp without reinstalling Windows, and doing these operations by hand, e.g. with the help of GNU Parted, is time consuming and tedious.

Luckily, I stumbled over Paragon CampTune, a commercial macOS utility (ready for 10.14 Mojave) that automates these tedious tasks and allows to resize the macOS and Boot Camp partitions on the fly, without having to reinstall Windows or macOS.

It finally worked wonderfully, the only irritating thing was that the tool showed a bland error at the first start of the repartitioning process: “Object not found”. After restarting the process with slightly different partition sizes, it could be successfully completed.

I can thus recommend this handy utility as it can save hours of work for a few bucks (ca. 22 USD).