Had Modern Standby, but it went away when I reinstalled Windows

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This is the opposite of most posts regarding this: I *WANT* Modern Standby\S0ix\s2idle, but I no longer have it on my desktop PC. My setup supports it, with a recently made mid-to-high range ASUS motherboard (Intel Z690 chipset) and CPU (Intel 12th generation) and PSU (ASUS Thor) and graphics card (GeForce RTX 20), but when I reinstalled Windows it went away. By went away I mean it had asked me if I want to have forced S3 or Modern Standby, but when I had reformatted the drive and reinstalled windows – it no longer asked it and I lack the ability to fix this (even a replacement store-bought harddrive and motherboard did not work).

Any help would be MASSIVELY appreciated. I’m hunting to enable Firmware Protection, but it is only valid if you have Modern Standby.

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Do you have the correct video driver installed?

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One thing which springs to mind is the signing of drivers. Windows through its update history may well have hung on to drivers the current build would not accept without intervention. That said if you load them to  version prior to the change and then upgraded the installation, I have no idea what would happen.

If you still have the ability to get the “working” install started you could list all the drivers that way (pnputil /enum-devices) and compare the new Windows installation with the old to deduce the problem driver.. and maybe see if you can port it manually and kick it into life somehow (maybe the new install is using a “better” driver, possibly from Windows update, and you need to use the old one.. which could still be present in the older installation.).

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/install/driver-signing

That said your spec indicates it’s not likely it needed KB 3081436.. so you might do better digging at the manufacturer support pages as it seems unlikely you’ll be their only customer reinstalling Windows.

Also probably worth running through some of the tips here on both to try to work out what the difference is- https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/modern-standby-in-newer-pcs/

Also you haven’t  mentioned which hardware you’re dealing with now – it could be the “replacement store-bought harddrive and motherboard” actually need BIOS / firmware updates to bring then up to scratch before you can use all the features, and perhaps with that done you might still need to “load defaults” on the BIOS settings and reinstall again to realise them as Windows makes the decision as to which HAL fits your platform at a relatively early stage in setup.

The other possibility is the functionality was loaded into setup – they’re not just mass storage drivers in some cases, so if you posted in a floppy or USB driver in setup, the missing driver could have been on there. (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/install/installing-a-boot-start-driver) – there was usually a “make disk” utility on the older ASUS motherboard DVDs, but of you rummaged in the drivers folder under “makedisk” there were 32 and 64 folders with the relevant drivers as files..

As to the specifics I would have thought check the chipset driver, and don’t overlook installing the manufacturers own brand board management utility, as that changes the driver to allow power management.. you haven’t any unknown devices in device manager I take it?

 

 

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When you run powercfg/a from a cmd prompt, what status does it show for Standby (S0 Low Power Idle)?

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This is supposed to be while installing Windows. I have taken care to update everything to the latest versions before using it when I got it from the store. I have seen the installer mention in an entire page that you will now have Modern Standby. But, I had to reinstall, and then it stopped mentioning it and using S3 for no apparent reason (nothing has changed, not the installer itself, I did not download a newer copy of Windows, not even newer drivers). I have all the exact same drivers and all work perfectly with Secure Boot, Memory Integrity, and the like. When I use the Command Prompt, I have it as unavailable and with “the system firmware does not support this standby state”. I have repeated this attempt with both updated and non-updated versions of the motherboard.

 

So… I am a bit confused. :\

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I forgot to mention. My entire computer remained the exact same – I only replaced the motherboard, once replaced a Strix Z690-E, and then a Maximus Z690. This strange occurrence had happened in my newer Strix card and the Maximus had already been without the Modern Standby option.

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Delta wrote:

I have repeated this attempt with both updated and non-updated versions of the motherboard.

According to Microsoft’s What is Modern Standby page.

Switching between S3 and Modern Standby cannot be done by changing a setting in the BIOS. Switching the power model is not supported in Windows without a complete OS re-install.

I.e. the setting in your motherboard BIOS to support Modern Standby\S0ix\s2idle must be enabled before you install Windows. If it was disabled when you installed Windows, the only way to get it back is to turn it on in the BIOS and then reinstall Windows.

BTW, some users over on the Asus ROG forum have indicated that “updating” the BIOS on Strix motherboards removed the setting used to do this.

It’s also possible it’s not working because your new PSU doesn’t support modern standby (i.e. my Asus ROG Maximus XI Gene motherboard supports S0 mode it but it doesn’t work because my PSU doesn’t support it.)

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I know and reinstalling Windows is what I had been talking about. I reinstalled it twice in a long run with it, and the last time it *worked* was with this entire computer, and then it did NOT work, and then it did not work after reinstalling Windows (including cleaning my entire drive out of everything) and I had replaced the motherboard 4 times (once for the old Strix, then the new Strix without updates, then the new updated Strix, and then the Maximus when I had given up).

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OK, another trick I can suggest.

Open regedit and go to HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power

Check for a DWORD value called PlatformAoAcOverride

If it doesn’t exist, then S0 mode hasn’t been disabled.

If it does exist, then S0 mode has been disabled.

To re-enable it, delete that value, reboot, and then run powercfg/a again to see if S0 mode is now available.

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My final suggest would be to download the AMI BIOS Utility (scewin.rar) from this Windows TenForums post (you’ll need to register in order to download it) and use it to verify your motherboard BIOS actually has Low Power S0 Idle Capability and see whether it’s Enabled/Disabled (it’s listed in my Asus ROG Maximus XI Gene BIOS but is currently disabled.)

The above post has instructions on how to use scewin to list all your BIOS settings (even the hidden ones) and how to enable S0 mode if it’s disabled.

Note: if you decide to use scewin to change your BIOS settings, I’d very strongly recommend you make a backup copy of it beforehand in case something goes “sideways” and you need to re-flash it.

Also bear in mind, you’ll need to reinstall Windows once again if you do get the S0 mode enabled or Windows won’t “see” it’s available.

Good luck!

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I forgot. The PlatformAoAcOverride does not exist (and it never has when the Modern Standby didn’t work – keep in mind I have NOT changed hardware or even open the PC casing when it originally disappeared).

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That is the oddest part of the problem. I know about reinstalling Windows (cleanly) to enable the different power mode, but it once had it and now it is gone. And, SCEWIN does not seem to work on my motherboard, it returns no results. :\

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Delta wrote:

SCEWIN does not seem to work on my motherboard, it returns no results.

Strange

While there are different versions of scewin for different manufacturer’s motherboards, that one is “suppose” to work for Asus motherboards with AMI BIOS and, according to the specs, your Strix Z690-E uses UEFI AMI BIOS.

Did you run scewin from an elevated cmd prompt? (i.e. Run as administrator)

Also, here’s the command I used to list all my own BIOS settings.

scewin /o /s BIOS.txt /lang en-US

Simply save the above text as a batch file, place it in the same directory as the amifldrv64.sys and scewin.exe files, and then “Run as administrator“.

The results will be in the BIOS.txt file it creates.

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I PREVIOUSLY had Strix, it has been replaced by Maximus, but it is essentially the same. But it only outputs this to the file:

// Script File Name : BIOS.txt
// Created on 07/30/22 at 19:13:32
// Copyright (c)2018 American Megatrends, Inc.
// AMISCE Utility. Ver 5.03.1115

HIICrc32= 712E4A15

BUT, it also outputs to the command prompt this specific item that raises questions (I have no idea what HII is):
WARNING: HII data does not have setup questions information

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That HII (Human Interface Infrastructure) warning refers to the UEFI HII database in the BIOS that contains all the actual settings info you see displayed when in the BIOS I/F.

Setup Question
Map String
Token
Offset
Width
BIOS Default
Options

That command “should” have read and exported all that data into the BIOS.txt file unless this particular version of scewin can’t access the HII database for your particular BIOS or it doesn’t use en-US as its language?

Try removing the /lang en-US section of the command (which will allow it to export all languages) and run it again to see if that produces a better results.

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I actually did remove it (although it was English it gave an error that the language was not found), and it still stayed that way.

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Do you have a link to a Linux version of scewin? In my attempts to find what was wrong I also installed Ubuntu on this machine but to no avail.

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scewin is actually AMI’s Setup Control Environment for Windows.

The Linux version is scelnx and no, I don’t have that version nor know where you can get it.

Here’s another option you can try that “might” work since your error indicated the HII data didn’t have setup questions information.

scewin /o /a /s BIOS.txt

The extra /a option allows empty or blank setup questions to be exported.

BTW, is your BIOS password protected?

If so, that might be why scewin can’t access it.

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Hey, I found a solution for the error you were getting with Scewin. I had the problem myself and finally figured it out. First you need to install grub on a USB using this Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfiMx9EjZVk then in your BIOS settings text file search for Hii and you’ll fill find the Key “Publish Hii Resources” then boot into grub and change the key to enabled.

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