Hi all,

After around 1 year of no issues since a failed RAM problem back in Oct 2024, I’ve run into a major issue after updating the BIOS firmware on my main PC that runs Unraid.

The BIOS update itself completed fine, but since then Unraid has become unstable and won’t boot properly or operate really at all.

Hardware:

• Gigabyte Z790 Gaming X AX (rev 1.1, BIOS F11d 08/07/2024)

• Intel i9-14900K

• 128 GB RAM (4×32 GB DDR5, tested sticks individually)

• RTX 4070 Ti Super (GPU passthrough not in use for host display)

• Running Unraid from USB
  

What I’ve tried so far:

• Restored my original Unraid flash drive from a backup

• Flashed multiple new USB drives (different brands/ports) with both my backup and fresh Unraid installs

• Reset BIOS to previous settings that I had before when unraid was running fine (CSM, virtualization, etc.)

• Restoring the bios version I was on previously.

• Also tried “Optimized Defaults”

• Tested each RAM stick individually
  

No matter what, I keep seeing errors like these:

SQUASHFS error: Failed to read block 0x1b8736c: -5
SQUASHFS error: xz decompression failed, data probably corrupt
SQUASHFS error: Unable to read fragment cache entry [159fa0a4]
usb 1-11.3: device descriptor read/64, error -71
usb 1-11-port3: Cannot enable. Maybe the USB cable is bad?
/etc/rc.d/rc.runlog: line 11:	1819 Bus error	"Se"&> /dev/null
rc.rsyslogd: Syslog server daemon…..Failed.
kvm_amd: CPU 14 isn't AMD or Hygon
mount: /sys/firmuare/efi/efivars: unknown filesystem type 'efivarfs'.
	dmesg(1) may have more information after failed mount system call.
r8169 0000:05:00.0 eth0: Link is Down

It looks like the kernel is struggling to read from the bzroot/bzimage (SQUASHFS errors), and there are repeated USB errors too. During startup, I also noticed network failures while the system attempts to download and install plugins.

I’ve tried multiple flash drives and ports, so I’m not sure if it’s related to BIOS USB initialization changes, RAM issues, or something else introduced by the BIOS update.

I’ve attached a few diagnostics zips from the various failed attempts to get it back up and working

Would really appreciate any help narrowing this down. Is it possible the new BIOS changed something critical for Unraid boot (e.g., USB controller handling, ACPI tables, IOMMU, etc.)?

I know that it kind of points towards bad RAM, but I just find it hard to believe that all 4 RAM sticks would fail at the same time, so it just seems a bit odd. Needless to say, I have ordered some new ram, but as that's not coming for a day or two, it'd be great if someone had more insight into this.

Thanks in advance!

unrais-diagnostics-20250826-1411.zip tower-diagnostics-20250826-1316.zip

Edited August 26, 2025Aug 26 by unrais
Added a troubleshooting step I missed.

Have you tried reinstalling the previous version of the BIOS?

1 minute ago, WN1X said:

Have you tried reinstalling the previous version of the BIOS?

Hey, yes I have, but still no luck. apologies I missed that off the list, I'll update the main post now.

These are typically a bad flash drive or bad RAM, but since it's a 14900K it could also be a bad CPU, related to the Intel 13/14 gen issues.

That model is one of the most affected, and there are several confirmed cases of those being the problem.

@JorgeB I mean RAM vs CPU, I'm hoping it's just the RAM, but what would be the chances that all 4 RAM turn bad? There was zero wrong with the system (and the ram) before I tried to upgrade the bios. So it's got to have been caused by something in that moment too, as I'd successfully rebooted, shutdown etc without seeing any errors until then.

12 hours ago, unrais said:

but what would be the chances that all 4 RAM turn bad?

Very slim, especially if you tried booting with different sticks using just one at a time, if the issue continues to occur after doing that, I would suspect the CPU.

Yep, after testing a new set of ram, it still doesnt work, which leads to a logical conclusion that it's either the CPU or MoBo now, so it's now being RMA'd.

Very annoying that there's been so much down-time, but I have just ordered a LincPlus LincStation S1, so hopefully that'll fill in the gap and potentially act as my main unraid system while the system I'm RMA-ing will be more for the 'grunt' work, such as background encoding, gen AI etc. Either that or the S1 will just become a nice 'backup' system to use if the main system fails again.

So the silverlining is I get something new to tinker with lol.