Upgrading ASUS CM6870 to Windows 10 Creators Edition or April 2018 release 1703, 1709, 1804 (RT3090 PCIe wireless card)

Anonymous

This was a pain for me, so I hope this helps someone.

I made 15 attempts to update my ASUS CM6870 from the Windows 10 Anniversary Edition to the Creators Edition (Creators Update), I *always* hung hard around 40 or 42% after the first system reboot, with the 'rolling' animation ground to a halt. This almost always points to a hardware problem.

I did everything to find the bad hardware! I disconnected all of the USB, ripped out all of the superfluous drivers, did a clean reboot, did a driver uninstall on my NVIDIA drivers using DDU, and uninstalled every program that had a funky driver like the VMWare standalone converter and my Cisco Anyconnect VPN. Nothing worked.

Each reboot reported "0xc1900101 - 0x30018 the installation failed in the FIRST_BOOT phase with an error during SYSPREP operation"

Digging into the clues from files left behind in C:$WINDOWS.~BT\Sources\Panther, I saw that the last thing before failure was a bunch of SPPNP messages which seems to be the SYSPREP driver loading phase. There were also a bunch of <NUL> characters at the end of the file. Some piece of hardware was refusing to play nice. I had painstakingly removed everything I could without opening the case.

Finally, based on various hints on forums, I cracked open the PC and pulled out my PCIe wireless card. Boom. Fully installed.

The Wireless card was a PCIe x1 in a PCI x16 slot if that matters, and it was the ASUS branded MediaTek Railink technologies RT3090 wireless card.

(PCI\VEN_1814&DEV_3090&SUBSYS_760111AD&REV_00)

Once the Creators Update was installed, I was able to reinstall the card without incident. Go figure.

Edit: This problem probably applies to any system using a P8H61 or P8H77 motherboard. According to this thread, the P8H77-M PRO (CM6870) is affected, as are other ASUS desktops like the ASUS CM6730 with a P8H61‑M PRO with that RT3090 wireless card.

Other commenters report that the ROG CG6480 / TYTAN CG8480 and CM1855 are also affected, presumably also with the errant RT3090 card.

I also observed the problem with an Ascend Ascendtech WN7601R-H1 PCI card in HP desktops. This is also an RT3090 PCIe card.

Commenter Chris Deer reports that he also had the problem with the Acer L4610, L4620, and L480, possible other Acer "L" models.

The Fall Creators Edition and April 2018 update also have this problem, so the installer is not yet fixed to place nice with the RT3090 wireless card.

One commenter noted that moving the card from a PCIx16 slot to a PCIx4 slot also fixed the problem, so it may be an interaction between the card and the northbridge (motherboard chipset) in certain slots.

EDIT: WARNING: Be careful removing and re-inserting the wireless card; make sure the power cord is removed from the power supply. The sound card chip is right at that slot and I damaged it, so now my system no longer recognizes when speakers are attached. Looks like I scratched a trace on the motherboard. I know it is a hardware problem because booting a Linux Live USB showed the same problem.

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228 answers

Anonymous

2018-05-13T22:43:33+00:00

Okay, thanks for the info, useful to know.
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Anonymous

2018-05-13T22:53:44+00:00

Hi remaker,

thanks for getting back to me.

What I mean by disconnected - the wireless card is a small square-shaped card that was plugged into some slot on my board, and held in place by a tiny screw. There are 2 black wires (marked by arrows in the picture uploaded) that lead from this card to the back of the PC.

What i did was to remove the screw holding the wireless card in place, and then unplugged the card from the slot, and simply left the card hanging, not connected to anything or touching anything else. It's basically suspended by the 2 wires that I mentioned above. I figured it would be sufficient to unplug the card, so didn't do anything beyond this.

Also, just for clarity, what do you mean by "First shut down"? - my PC doesn't shut down at any point during the failed update. It first checks the downloaded files and then simply begins the update process. It remains powered on throughout.

Thanks,

I.
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Anonymous

2018-05-14T02:59:35+00:00

Good reminder to make sure the BIOS is up-to-date, but yes, mine is, and I still haven't been able to upgrade to 1803.
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Anonymous

2018-05-14T14:06:23+00:00

Thanks for the photo. Those two wires are the antennas. What you did should be enough of a disconnect, but can you try disabling WLAN in the BIOS as well, if it is there? I’m not sure if that matters, but your card is different than mine. It may just be the radio part of the card with some other electronics still on the motherboard.

The install sequence of the update is that you answer questions and then it starts copying files, and will reboot at least twice during the install. Once the file copying starts and before the first reboot, pull out all USB plugs, including keyboard, mouse and wireless transmitters.

I don’t know if this will work, just a guess.
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Anonymous

2018-05-14T18:21:29+00:00

I've had another related issue since. I left my wireless card out until the 1803 update came, thinking to kill two birds with one stone, then replaced it. On restarting a few days later the screen froze - the dots stopped rotating - and I had to press the power button. I had this problem for months but hadn't realised that might also be the wireless card. So I removed it again and that problem is now solved also. I shall not be replacing it.
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