What I’ve Tried:
I have scoured the internet and others have experienced this locked ram behaviour with many different hardware mixes, all with different solutions and outcomes, there seems to be no single fix.
I have flashed the bios back to 1302 from 1501, cleared the cmos, removed the battery and tried 30 or 40 different bios entries related to uefi secure boot (disabled) and tpm modules. Ran boot-repair multiple times each one ending with a “locked nvram” error and boot failure.
This is on a Realtek m2 drive, both 256gb dual-booting with Win 11 which sees the UEFI entry just fine. I have tried it directly on the motherboard, and also with an USB3 M2 caddy, same result.
My stock Pioneer M2 drive which is housed in a removable pcie caddy with 25.04 and Win 11works well and does not have this locked nvram error. I have also tried the Realtek M2 in this PCIe caddy with the same result.
Here is the drive layout, my main drive is nvme0n(1,2,3,4,5,6), the USB caddy drive which has the issue is sdf(1,2,3,4,5,6).
root@linuxmint:/home/tony# lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda 8:0 0 1.8T 0 disk
└─sda1 8:1 0 1.8T 0 part /media/films
sdb 8:16 1 0B 0 disk
sdc 8:32 1 0B 0 disk
sdd 8:48 1 0B 0 disk
sde 8:64 1 0B 0 disk
sdf 8:80 0 238.5G 0 disk
├─sdf1 8:81 0 500M 0 part
├─sdf2 8:82 0 16M 0 part
├─sdf3 8:83 0 75.5G 0 part
├─sdf4 8:84 0 650M 0 part
├─sdf5 8:85 0 46G 0 part
└─sdf6 8:86 0 115.9G 0 part
nvme3n1 259:0 0 1.8T 0 disk
└─nvme3n1p1 259:2 0 1.8T 0 part /media/m2
nvme0n1 259:1 0 238.5G 0 disk
├─nvme0n1p1 259:3 0 100M 0 part /boot/efi
├─nvme0n1p2 259:4 0 16M 0 part
├─nvme0n1p3 259:5 0 76.7G 0 part
├─nvme0n1p4 259:6 0 520M 0 part
├─nvme0n1p5 259:7 0 49.4G 0 part /
└─nvme0n1p6 259:8 0 111.8G 0 part /home
nvme1n1 259:9 0 3.6T 0 disk
└─nvme1n1p1 259:10 0 3.6T 0 part /media/newdata
nvme2n1 259:11 0 1.8T 0 disk
└─nvme2n1p1 259:12 0 1.8T 0 part /media/2tba
root@linuxmint:/home/tony#
@tea-for-one Thanks for responding. The answer is yes and yes. PTT is not enabled, there is a choice of settings, PTT or dTPM. PTT Configuration
TPM Device Selection
This item allows you to select the TPM device.
Configuration options: [dTPM] [PTT] From the manual:
‘’‘PTP aware OS
This item allows you to select whether or not the OS will be PTP aware.
Configuration options: [PTP aware] [Not PTP aware’‘’
PTT enabled > Boot rEFInd via USB > Select Kernel > OS boots
PTT enabled > Boot rEFInd via USB > Select EFI\ubuntu\grubx64.efi > Boots to Grub > Select Ubuntu > OS boots
If I could explain this succinctly, I would.
So much depends on the vendor’s implementation of UEFI firmware, together with Grub and the whole boot process.
@tea-for-one Thanks for the info. The boot system is already so complex, I’m not sure adding another layer of complication is the right way to go, but it can’t hurt to try it out. I’ll read up on it and give it a go.
Cheers Tony
I installed refind but I have not implemented it yet.
What I have done is to fire up my old standby machine with an Asus Z68 mobo i7 16gb and see if it behaved the same. I got exactly the same results. I think it may be a property of the Synix m2 256gb nvme drive I have been using. My next step is to see if it behaves the same with a Reatek 256mg M2 nvme drive. I’ll report back.
I tried it again with the same m2 drives in the old machine Gigabyte Z68 i7 2600k I have lying around and it formats and loads the boot sequence perfectly and allows entries into the nvram. So it looks as thought it is the Asus mobo that’s screwed. I don’t know why it failed first time around. Gremlins in the ether? Anyone got a suitable replacement mobo lying around?
Hi Jeremy, I have tried every possible combination on the bios, and nothing changes. However, just spotted a used mobo on ebay for £93 and purchased it. It will be interesting to see what transpires. My mobo has been slowly dying the death of a thousand cuts for some time now, first the btooth module failed about 2 years ago, then the wireless followed by the lan port and usb - 4 port over the following interval, so maybe this is the death knell for my mobo. When the replacement board arrives and I’ve fitted the cpu etc I’ll report back on the results. Thanks to all who have chipped in for me. This is a pretty old rig but it does all I want and runs my mythtv and is still reasonably quick in transcoding videos etc, I didn’t want to have to get a new one if I didn’t have to.
Well, the motherboard turned up but it was very badly packed. The original box was not sealed and the front flap was flapping about in the breeze, the motherboard was not sealed in an anti- static bag and there were no accessories at all. Amazingly enough, I fitted the cpu, memory and all peripherals and it works like a charm! It has a really old bios from 2016 but it works and I ain’nt gonna touch it!
Thanks everyone for your input I would not have thought the mobo would have been to blame, but there you are.
Incidentally, my run of bad luck continues, the old machine I’ve been using until I got this going, went bang just now when I switched on…