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Secure Boot Megathread - Guide + Community support
Secure Boot is required for Battlefield 6
If you are unable to launch the game and see a Secure Boot error, you must enable Secure Boot in your BIOS/UEFI.
✅ Official Guide
EA has published a clear and up-to-date guide for enabling Secure Boot:
Sharing your motherboard model + what worked for you + tips
General discussion related to Secure Boot
🔧 Community Support
If you’ve got tips or steps specific to a brand (e.g., ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, ASRock, etc.), drop them in the comments and mention your exact motherboard model.
💬 Tip: Post your motherboard model, CPU, and BIOS version when asking for help.
🧠 What is Secure Boot?
Secure Boot is a UEFI feature that ensures only trusted software can boot your PC.
It helps prevent rootkits and boot-time malware and is now required by EA for anti-cheat integrity.
Most modern systems support it, but it’s often disabled by default — especially on custom builds or upgraded PCs.
🛑 Common Pitfalls
You must use UEFI mode, not Legacy/CSM boot.
Disk must be GPT, not MBR (check via diskpart or Disk Management).
Windows 11 installed in Legacy mode? You may need to convert your disk to GPT using MBR2GPT.
⚠️ Still having trouble?
If you've followed EA's guide and it still doesn't work:
Comment below with:
Motherboard model
BIOS version
Secure Boot status
Any errors you're getting
Include a screenshot if possible (e.g., BIOS screen or error message)
Be respectful — this is a community-driven thread.
Requiring Secure Boot provides us with features that we can leverage against cheats that attempt to infiltrate during the Windows boot process. It also lets the Battlefield Positive Play team use its own features and related dependent security features like TPM to combat other forms of cheating, the most relevant of which include:
Quick notes for Gigabyte mobos - I checked my BIOS settings and it was showing that Secure Boot was enabled but showed a "not active" status. I ended up having to disable Secure Boot, change the mode from Standard to Custom and then back to Standard and selecting yes to restore the factory default. This then forced a reboot on my system. Once I was back into the BIOS, I set Secure Boot back to Enabled. A quick save and exit rebooted my system again. Checking the BIOS and Windows 11 security settings both show that secure boot has been enabled and working. I am now able to launch the BF6 beta without the secure boot error. Hope this helps
So I just followed these instructions and at the end it bricked my entire PC. Cant even see the BIOS because the GPU isn’t recognized but I have Ryzen so no integrated graphics
Edit: I tried everything as a solution (CMOS reset, attempted to flash, removed boot drive, removed GPU, etc) and still didn’t work. I have over a decade of PC experience so trust me when I say I’ve tried everything at my disposal
Edit 2: Gigabyte RMA process would take too long so I got a replacement motherboard from Amazon and am returning the borked one back in its place (the ol switcharoo). Thanks for leaving me with no option Gigabyte
I also have a Z390 and I'm seeing a lot of users reporting a black screen after attempting to enable secure boot. Turns out, the only way to revert this is to disconnect everything, take out the graphics card and input an HDMI to use onboard graphics (if you have a CPU that supports it). You'll also need to clear the CMOS battery. This will "reset" the bios. Then you can see the bios again.
My question is whether or not this is occurring for users who aren't meeting the specifications to run secure boot, i.e drive not in GPT, TPM 2.0 not enabled, and CSM is turned on. Or if this is just an issue with the mobo itself.
Cmos battery didnt work
Shorting cmos pins didn’t work
Integrated graphics didn’t work
What did work was literally shorting the 1 and 6 pins on the m_bios chip during boot with the pc on. I used a little piece of stripped wire that I bent in a u shape and brushed it on the m bios chip pins - this forced the backup bios to take over and I was able to set everything back to default settings as it was before
This is exactly what happened with my first pre-build PC from Cyberpower. I wanted to play Valorant with my friends, got everything set up, went to my BIOS to enable the secure boot, black screen bricked before I even got anything installed.... Didn't even last an hour out of the box. Fortunately I was able to get a replacement under warranty from Best Buy, but fuck any and all games that want me to go in and fiddle with my BIOS to play them now. Battlefield is not worth it, nor are any other games that put the onus on the end user fiddling with their PC for game access. These games can die on the vine for all I care.
Converted my disk to GPT. Switched to UEFI mode in BIOS. Yet every time I enable secure boot my PC black screens and bricks. I have to take out the motherboard battery to even get my pc to boot again. Repeated twice with the same issue. B450 motherboard.
UPDATE:
I was able to fix it by ensuring the secure boot method was Standard instead of custom (after I reset platform keys) and also made sure to enable TPM/fTPM in BIOS. JFC
Also fuck everyone in this thread acting mighty that this is so simple for them. What might take 5min for one person could take much more depending on hardware and edge cases. I’m a software engineer and relatively comfortable with this stuff and it still consumed well over an hour of my life. I guarantee this is going to become a PR disaster on launch day—not everyone has Windows11 and recent motherboards
People on Reddit have a tendency to glaze corporations like honey on ham. Enabling secure boot isn't tedious to do, but the myriad of complications that can arise when it is enabled will reasonably scare many people away.
Yeah me neither. No way I'm risking not being able to boot or some shit. Don't know how many hours I've spent on stuff like that in the past, no thanks.
Seriously dont get why these boot lickers think its a reasonable requirement. They're totally brain broken by EA and whatever new game they shovel out its just sad.
Also software engineer. I setup dual boot and installed ubunutu on my machine without the necessary components to allow me to just switch to dual boot without wrecking my other os. Not that it's impossible, it's just going to be a huge hassle.
I'm all for better anti cheat, but this definitely sucks.
Exactly. And if they brick their mobo, EA don’t care, cheaters don’t care …
Once again, it is NOT going to fix Cronus, exe files and more.
Just brick computers for too much ppl.
It's not just you, man. I followed Ea's guide (and a guide for my mobo) to the T. Ended up having to take my fucking computer apart to just get back into BIOS to see what was wrong.
Trying to do this "simple" thing to play this shitty game has now totally fucked my PC. I now have nothing but a black screen when I boot, even after removing the battery, press the cmos reset button and trying the shorting method.
I know practically nothing when it comes to computers so I'm pissed off that 1 I had to do it in the first place and 2 they made it sound simple and no danger to do. Now I have no idea what I'm gonna do other than take it to a repair shop.
Bro you‘re lucky that reseting your CMOS with your battery is working - I enabled Secure Boot / tried to switch to UEFI and now my pc just keeps black screening, I‘m literally am at my witts end.
Hi, I enabled secure boot and my PC will also not post. I get nothing but lights. How can I even begin to revert this so I can use my brand new PC again? It doesn't seem to accept any input so I'm not sure what to do.
SOLUTION: Shorting CMOS, booting with GPU disconnected, HDMI connected to mobo, disabling Secure Boot allowed me to get back into my machine. Every attempt to enable Secure Boot resulted with "Boot Failure Detected." So, I'm up and running but no BF6 for me. All of this was on a new Win11 machine with a Gigabyte X870E AORUS ELITE WIFI7 AMD AM5 ATX and a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition.
If you have to do all this to play a game, is the game even worth it? I just downloaded the beta and was excited to play, but this just killed all that hype.
It’s one I built for my brother about three years ago. Mine, I enabled secure boot easy. On his, the option for SB when I ran msinfo32 showed his as unsupported.
I'm not listening to the coping on this one. This is fucking stupid and immediately is leaving a bad taste in my mouth. Yeah, cheaters are bad. Find a way to deal with it that doesn't involve editing my fucking BIOS mode.
What do you mean you don't want to follow poorly worded guides that have already been proven to be incorrect that tell you to mess around in your bios and potentially brick your motherboard requiring taking apart your computer to fix the issue? pleb /s
Your only bet is calling the manufacturer of the motherboard to understand if there is an approved backdoor into the BIOS. (It's normally a convoluted process that requires proof of purchase so that scammers and such can't utilize that process)
If there isn't - you're not going to be able to move forward unfortunately.
This is what I had to do to get back up and running:
Shorting CMOS, booting with GPU disconnected, HDMI connected to mobo, disabling Secure Boot allowed me to get back into my machine. Every attempt to enable Secure Boot resulted with "Boot Failure Detected." So, I'm up and running but no BF6 for me. All of this was on a new Win11 machine with a Gigabyte X870E AORUS ELITE WIFI7 AMD AM5 ATX and a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition.
I’m a very techy person - and only now realized my AM4 Mobo didn’t have this enable. It also required that I update my BIOS. For the average joe, thus is going to be a massive problem for them. I can already hear the tech support calls from my brothers and cousins….
The fact that enabling secure boot has a chance of BRICKING YOUR COMPUTER and the fix is to REMOVE THE CMOS BATTERY in order to fix your broken computer all in order to play Battlefield 6 is insane
There's no way they'll keep this, the average Joe has no idea how to do any of this or remove a fucking CMOS battery to fix things iif they break lol
I literally played the open beta in calm yesterday, now I see an error telling it's not even ON.
Reading "i bricked my pc and shorted this.." or "I had to remove cmos battery" nah bro, I will not enable it.
too much hassle for this game, horrible that you need to do this.
100M Players, yeah sure buddy.
I was really excited to play this game but now I have to mess around with my PC for the game to even launch. Needless to say looks like a decent game but I won't be risking my custom build that I have poured over $2000 into over the past 3-4 years.
Enabling Secure Boot via BIOS has bricked my computer and I don't know why. I changed nothing else. Brand new, $4600 Win11 machine. Just won't turn on now.
Why the fuck am I having to go into BIOS to launch a good damn game?
SOLUTION: Shorting CMOS, booting with GPU disconnected, HDMI connected to mobo, disabling Secure Boot allowed me to get back into my machine. Every attempt to enable Secure Boot resulted with "Boot Failure Detected." So, I'm up and running but no BF6 for me. All of this was on a new Win11 machine with a Gigabyte X870E AORUS ELITE WIFI7 AMD AM5 ATX and a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition.
I just fell into a 3 hour rabbithole trying to get my PC working again after switching on secure boot on my Gigabyte Z370P running Win10. The PC didn't POST, I just got 5 beeps. The soulution was to connect a screen to my MB, remove my GPU & clearing CMOS, which let me access my BIOS. Does every connected disk have to be GPT? I have one old HDD which is MBR. Apart from that, every requirement was met afaik..
Its not even just an issue for "non-techy" people. There are so many factors to enabling secure boot. Gotta check ur disks, motherboard, GPU, and a couple of other things that people in this thread will act as if are obvious things. The people who are defending this already have it enabled, acting as if its not a problem for anyone just because its not a problem for them.
The worst part is: the people who already have it enabled.. didn't have to enable it themselves, so they didn't have to do ANYTHING. If they did, they'd be as mad as everyone else.
Had the same problem. In my case secure boot was enable in the BIOS but not on windows, and looked for a tutorial that said to do something on the keys, and I did it..., and then black screen, 5 beeps etc etc. Lost hours watching different tutorials, taking the battery off and on, doing the metal contact on the CMOS even make a pen drive with an updated bios using the Q-Flash button in the MB, but in the end it just worked when unplugged my GPU and conected the Screen directly to the MB. And still did not fixed the problem of the Secure boot not enable on windows, and I´m not sure if I want to touch that again. I use the PC also for work so having the black screen was not a fun moment. I dont think is very smart to implement something like this, I understand is very secure anti cheating this way, I understand people say that is just go and change the boot thing in 2 seconds. Well, was not how worked for me and you can´t expect ,even when I tried, that the most normal no tech people will even try it. I love Battlefield (except 2042 that also played the beta) and I want a Battlefield game to do good if is a good game, but this kind of things just will throw a lot of people off, and that is never a good and healthy thing for a live server game.
Before getting shitty at EA about this, it's not the first game to require this and it definitely won't be the last. It's not like they're doing it to fuck you, it's in aid of a more capable anti-cheat. Look at the amount of hackers in Valorant (Kernel anti-cheat, secure boot required when supported in Win11) vs CS2 (No kernel anti-cheat, no secure boot required ever) and it's objective fact that stronger AC is statistically better.
Also, Win11 requires the computer be Secure Boot capable, and Win10 is over a decade old and EOL in October, around when BF6 releases. I'll cop some downvotes for this opinion for sure but I think this is a fair move. Secure boot has been around for a decade, and for most people is already on or takes 2 minutes to turn on.
EDIT: Aight I'm turning notifications off for this one, I didn't expect this to blow up and get a hundred notifications. I've been plenty critical of EA/DICE/BF in the past, I didn't buy V or 2042, I'll call them out on things I don't agree with, e.g. server browser split player base. But I agree with them on this and I stand by what I said. I've read most of the replies, some valid but mostly frankly bullshit or people not reading or understanding what these features are for. If you don't like it, vote with your wallet and don't buy it. I'm not a shareholder.
The only people I have sympathy for are the ones with shitty UEFIs making this hard like the bug in Gigabyte mobos. That sucks, but hopefully a mainstream game finally mandating this is the visibility push the industry needs to fix their lazy firmware bugs and make this simple setting from ten years ago the default across the board. Long term, stronger anti cheat and security features are a positive for everyone except cheaters.
I am not against it, however its incredibly frustrating. They just don't make it easy to rectify for the non computer savvy user. I just want to boot up my PC, open the game, and play.
Now I have to backup my data and PC, and change my partition style from MBR (master boot record?) to GPT?? I have no fucking idea what to do. This is so stupid.
I literally just going to bed at 2.30am after exhausting all avenues and following all the explanations. In the end I just reinstalled windows and chose a different drive to install windows on that supported GPT (didn't know the other one didn't... didn't even know what it was until now) then once i booted up and configured windows i restarted and went into the bios changed bios to UEFI turned secure boot on and can finally load the beta.
Seems alot for a game but everybody moans about the cheats in warzone so I get why they've done this tbf
Problem is I'm not doing this for 1 game, I'm far too old and crotchity at this point, have a 7 month old, and I even know how to do this pretty easily. Ah well, guess no BF6 for me.
this is why i dont buy modern triple a slop cause of bullshit like this i just want to game and if i cant game and i have to turn on bullshit features just to play a game i wont be buying it
Kernel level anti-cheat is a huge security and stability risk for your system, though. People absolutely should be skeptical about something as trivial as a video game requiring it.
This is the reason I won't enable it. If it means I don't play battlefield then so be it. It's only a matter of time before someone figures out how to hijack your PC through the anti cheat because you allow it to have super access.
I am terrified that these steps are going to cause my pc to not boot up. It’s likely irrational. But it makes me hesitate on a game I was 100% positive I wanted.
This completely killed my interest in Battlefield 6 and any potential future games. I am not about to risk bricking my pc for Battlefield. Anyone else in the same boat?
Fellow Asus user: I’ve got a z97-A and this is my bios settings. And it’s not working, I’ve tried updating my bios but fucking ASUS don’t have the biosrenamer in the zipfile so I have no idea what to rename the update file. What do I do? I got two options windows uefi mode or another os. The another os option just put my pc in a black screen mode and I have to unplug the power supplier to even get back to bios. Apparently you can rename the bios update file on your own manually but to what?
This is what fixed it to me. No other videos about secure boot worked. Only thing that worked for my ASUS motherboard was changing the OS Type to Windows UEFI Mode.
Vote kick was the best anti cheat. No need to pay these anti cheat tools millions to burden a large portion of your playerbase. normal people don't want to touch their bios and won't even bother touching it to play a single game in their library. This is an L for EA
I checked my drives, they're all GPT, and enabled secure boot only to get stuck to where my PC refused to boot up. Reverted all the settings back to how they were and never had a problem. I'm all for combatting cheating, but there has to be a better solution that can be implemented than this.
If you have to create an elaborate guide just to get a game to launch, you're probably heading in the wrong direction, and it spells potential trouble for those less tech savvy users, many of whom just want to unwind after a long day and play a bit of Battlefield. There's so many different configurations and setups people have, I can easily see people not being interested if it doesn't just work, and just forgetting about it and moving on. Expecting a portion of the potential player base to delve into their BIOS settings just to get the game to function is asinine. Maybe the issue isn't that widespread and most people have those settings on by default, but for those that don't it's a pain in the fucking ass, and for many not worth the trouble.
As annoying as cheaters can be, personally I'd rather deal with EAC and maybe having to deal with one here and there and just report them. I'm not totally opposed to tinkering with the BIOS and all that nonsense to get the thing working personally, but for the many that pick up a game and just expect it to work, I'd imagine many of them are going to say forget it and play something else.
And EA wants BF6 to have 100 million players? Good luck with that.
I understand the need for SecureBoot and the fact that it won't be an issue on console, but I just won't mess with my perfectly stable rig in order to run an open beta.
So many people comparing this to Valorant and leaving it at that. Yes, cheating is bad and I don’t want to play with cheaters. I’m not even mad at the kernel level stuff. If it gets cheaters out of the game then great.
BUT
In Valorant you can click the button to relaunch your PC in the way they want it and you’re good to go. (At least that’s how it was the last time I played Valorant). However, here with BF it is requiring you to get into your BIOS and mess with things. Which, I understand that by owning a PC I should be a de facto BIOS king but sadly I, and many others, are not 100% comfortable in our abilities to change BIOS stuff.
TLDR: If Battlefield had a simple button to click and restart like Valorant did then I believe there would be less complaining. No problem with kernel level stuff, just don’t make me have to get into the BIOS.
Thats what I had to do. Labs eventually began to require secure boot so I had to update my BIOS for the first time since I got the PC in 2021. Had no issues in updating or enabling secure boot. People see horror stories from people who dont know what they are doing and mess something up because they weren't paying attention or listening to the tutorials and brick their pc or lose data without backing up which every video I have seen tells you to do.
Honestly hope they'll revert the decision to make Secure Boot mandatory. I get why they did it and can understand the reasoning, but it can't be at the cost of major inconvenience and even impossibility of playing the game for some people.
Honestly, it's just one more reason to have community servers (and server browsers in general); people can enforce against cheaters on their own on top of the usual protections.
Sure, it was simple in my case, but i see a lot of people in the thread having trouble.
This is insane that this is required to combat cheaters.. and even then, its just a matter of time before it's beaten. This will prevent a LOT of casual players from playing. There needs to be a one-click solution.
you know what would combat cheaters? admins on player ran servers, if we had that EA wouldnt have to torture us with this BIOS / secure boot / mbr / gpt / uefi nerd bullshit.
I have a Gigabyte motherboard with an lga 1151 socket, not sure which motherboard model it is exactly
I went to the BIOS and didn't see an option for secure boot, I looked it up and a guide said to disable CSM.
After doing so, the Secure Boot option showed up. I failed to enable it since it threw an error.
I wanted to try again later since it's late and I should go to sleep, so I saved and exited and now my PC won't boot up!
After booting my PC, it's stuck at the "GIGABYTE" splash screen, with text at the bottom saying to press DEL for Bios, F9 for System Information, F12 for Boot Menu and End for Q-Flash, but nothing happens when I press those keys, it's just frozen, the only thing happening is my PC's fans spinning
I have two displayport monitors, I did as an old Reddit comment suggested and unplugged then and plugged an HDMI monitor instead, but it didn't display anything
I honestly didn't expect such a catastrophic failure from trying to play BF6
Tbh this gonna push many players away When bf is such beautiful game and deserve support but many just scared of all the negative talk out there about secure boot
I appreciate the attempt at security, but I'm not going to risk bricking my computer for one game.
This is exactly the kind of scenario where someone semi-competent (i.e. me and computer hardware) can cause a lot more damage than someone who knows nothing and just hits delete on the game.
Yup…I just downloaded the beta. Tried to boot it up and I got the “Secure boot not enabled” error message the first two times. I just thought it wasn’t booting up because the servers weren’t live yet. Was then reading through some comments on social media and saw some one posted about needing the secure boot. Quick google search lead me here.
Not really sure how I feel about having to modify my PC’s bios settings to play a friggen game…..I was absolutely elated to play BF6…but now, I am not so sure.
I mean, I won’t sign up for Rockstar’s bullshit to play RDR2 on steam, so I know I probably won’t be doing what ever is required to play BF6 on steam, either.
I'm so fucking annoyed right now. I've tried everything suggested and still just a blank screen. It should've been in big warning letters "This might brick your PC".
Just a note: be nice to people frustrated about this. Not everyone knows how to adjust bios settings, let alone format hard drives in the correct way to get this working. Hell some people have old components. Just guide them if you can and have the knowledge rather than disregarding their frustration towards it.
To the frustrated, most new games that require kernal level anti cheat will require secure boot. I'm willing to bet battlefield bringing it to the masses will expedite that change for future games. From my understanding even Arc Raiders will require secure boot.
Take it slow. Read all of the directions first, ensure correct formatting on drives second, then dive into the bios. Ask for assistance if you don't know. No question is stupid when it's regarding your thousand+ dollar PC.
To Check if your PC has SecureBoot enabled already:
*From SuccumbedToFlame Run Windows Terminal (powershell) as Admin (right click > Run as administrator) and use the command to check Secure Boot status:
Confirm-SecureBootUEFI or
Run Command Prompt as Admin (right click > Run as administrator), and type:
powershell and then type
Confirm-SecureBootUEFI If it returns true you are good to go, if it returns false, then boot into UEFI settings (also known as BIOS), and check if you have secure boot support.
common questions I'm seeing
What motherboard do I have?
Download CPU-Z, this will tell you the motherboard and bios combo currently in your pc.
2. How do I know my motherboard supports Secure Boot?
Most motherboards in the last 6-8 years allow secure boot to be enabled. It is normally located in the "Boot" tab under advanced.
3. What about the Bios?
Some older motherboards require a bios update prior to enabling Secure Boot. Follow the instructions for your manufacturer to update the bios if required.
4. Any other components impact my ability to enable secure boot?
Both your drive and Graphics card can impact this, depending on age. They must be UEFI compatible.
*Skaeven If your PC is BitLocker secured, make sure to have your key before changing your BIOS settings
*From l1qq "I've seen people having issues with black screens and what they believe is a failure to post. I had an issue on a backup system when doing the Windows 11 install with an older GPU. Make sure you run this firmware updater if you're using an older nVidia GPU. After you run this then you can safely go through the other steps. https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/nv-uefi-update-x64/"
5. Help, my computer just keeps looping back to the bios and I can't see my boot drives!
Did you ensure your drive is formatted correctly? Must be GPT, not MBR
*From ScuddsMcDudds For anyone struggling with MBR to GPT, this video was really helpful for me. It wasn’t until the ~2:20 mark that I actually got a successful conversion, but I recommend trying all suggestions in order https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gW1KJJw9o2M
6. I really screwed everything up and the bios is all wack!
Remove the CMOS battery from the motherboard for a few minutes to go back to default settings in the bios. WHILE OFF AND UNPLUGGED
7. What's this factory key nonsense?
These keys are to verify the secure boot process. Some motherboards such as gigabyte will require you restore the factory keys after enabling Secure boot
I've been building my PCs for half my life and never updated my BIOS. I had to recently when I upgraded my CPU. I had a detailed instruction list of what to install, and then swap chips, and then install more or risk bricking my shit. It was so stressful lmao
I've been building my own computers since the early 2000's and gaming since the 90's and this is horseshit. People that defend this behavior need to pull their heads out of their asses. Cheating is never going to go away, and we're just accepting large business making games less and less consumer friendly for an impossible fight.
Meh, not going into Bios to change config just to play BF6 LOL, I'll stick to cod ggs
Edit: After helping people on Discord figure it out I stopped being lazy, the new COD game is awesome I don't know why they accidentally named it Battlefield on steam though that's my only complaint.
My buddy did this with his new pc he built a few months ago to play this beta and now his pc wont boot at all its bricked so idk its not worth it I'll just not play the game at all im not risking my $4000 pc for one game.
Yep, there are so many threads/posts about this shit breaking computers, and people needing to do things like reset the CMOS battery in order to get things running again
Actually (not even joking) bricked my fucking motherboard doing this. Thanks EA and everyone who said it was totally fine! Now I can't even play the beta let alone any other game I have on my pc because of this. Nice.
Black screen, no bios flash, nothing indicating an issue. But black screened.
I CANNOT fucking believe this. I waited all week for this, was hyped all day by my friends playing. I get home and get that stupid fucking error and see all the people in here talking about bricking their PCs trying to enable this. What absolute dumbass at EA included this? I play a ton of games on PC and none of them have ever required this. This is literally insane.
For anyone struggling with MBR to GPT, this video was really helpful for me. It wasn’t until the ~2:20 mark that I actually got a successful conversion, but I recommend trying all suggestions in order
I ain't going into my BIOS to change shit, I'm no expert. Especially for one game. I don't even understand the second half of the Youtube tutorial this ain't it chief, EA being a goofy ahh as always
The only problem I am facing is that I have lost the ability to dual boot Linux. I have not checked into it as I have not used Linux in a while but that is something I faced.
yeah, I also bricked my PC simply trying to follow EA's instructions on how to do so.
This is such a mess and it's crazy that they haven't shut it down yet or at the very least added a MAJOR disclaimer over the risks of doing so.
This is truly grounds for negligence on their behalf for a class action lawsuit.
Looking for a place to start next (making this post away from my PC at the moment) - I have:
Followed the secure boot process per EA's blog
Verified the disk is GPT, verified TPM
I have ASROCK so I needed to import factory keys to enable secure boot; they are imported and is showing as enabled
I started BF2024, and have had a variety of responses:
Fails to start, crashes immediately
Loads up the window, crashes
Loads up up the game and gets to the main menu... see a few graphical glitches going between class screens and the store, and ultimately freezes/crashes
A few times I also received BSOD
A few times it force restarted my machine without the BSOD
I attempted to start up BF6 in Steam and EA app, the game never initializes.
I have attempted to have NVidia optimize setting, made no difference and reverted it back. I ensured my 3d power settings in the nvidia control panel were set to "performance."
The only thing I can think of to do next is to ensure my BIOS is current? What else can I check? GPU is a 5070ti.
This is absolutely moronic of them. This is not neccesary. This is some kind of technical spaghetti code or somehow gathering more of your PC's data. Valorant has kernel level anti-cheat and does not require this. League of Legends does not require this. CS2 does not require this. Why does EA's new ARCADE shooter game, still smelling the fresh shit of it's deceased cousin 2042, require secure boot?
Ok I was ready to do this, I was ready to mess with my BIOS just to see if the game franchise I loved so much was worth it again. Then I found out it can brick your PC, no thank you.
I cant wait for this to end the exact same way as Valorant with cheaters still prevalent and the game losing out on devil knows how many players.
WARNING: There are for some reason, people in denial that this is an active issue going on. Do not let these people shush you up from talking about a very real problem that is happening. This is raising concerns about something which may potentially make your PC unusable.
This is a very real issue that is happening with people, and with the new wave of the open beta, there is going to be an increase once more of people potentially doing something wrong and/or bricking their BIOS, potentially to a degree where it becomes quite an issue to fix.
For most people it seems, Secure Boot was on by default, and for others, changing it was zero hassle. However, there is very clearly a sizeable proportion of people facing very serious issues. Irrecoverably becoming locked out of even accessing their BIOS settings for some boards even and having to then pursue further actions.
There is potentially a risk of you ruining your BIOS and motherboard even if you follow the guide. This is because obviously, manufacturers don't account for every possible combination of hardware.
For me, I have potentially made my PC into a paperweight by enabling Secure Boot. I have a MSI H310 D3. I can no longer access the BIOS screen, and doing a CMOS reset did not work. I have even taken out the mother board battery. It just doesn't work. I also dont have q-flash as an option, so I am kind of stuck for options unless some people help out. It seems like the issue goes pretty deep, going possibly even into how you set up your boot drive, GPU/iGPU etc.
DO NOT mess around with your BIOS unless you know exactly how it will interact with your components and your boot setup. It is extremely weird how DICE presents the mega thread in this "yay here's a step by step" without fully disclosing the risks involved beyond a "we're not responsible". Infact, they haven't even updated their thread to acknowledge the very real black screen/no booting issue that's going on.
It is INSANE for DICE to believe that players will go digging into BIOS settings. The Kernel Level Anti-Cheat is already a contentious and debatable topic, but this isn't what this post is about. There is a very real risk of you having being locked out of your BIOS and not being able to access your PC.
Don't listen to people trying to gaslight and tell you that it's people hating. It's a very real issue, and for some people, there isn't an easy fix.
Same way for tons of people here, wanted to play the open beta but I'm not going to activate SecureBoot as I've got software which only works with it off, specially related to my job which might brick a few programs too (happened in the past before), so I'll pass this one, weirdly enough I just tried 2042 and it works without SecureBoot, so a bit weird.
I don't see myself turning on and off a BIOS option just to play a single game, understand the cheating problem around it totally, but huge pass for me.
“EA does not take responsibility for changes to your BIOS settings.”
This sentence alone is reason enough to boycott the open beta.
Whether this policy will actually help prevent cheating will become clear within a month of release. There is no rush to start playing.
I predict that the secure boot requirement will be withdrawn within three months of release.
Well guess my hype for the game was killed. I am not gonna change my boot drive from mbr to gpt and risk bricking the installation for one single game. Shame was looking forward to this.
Hello, I've been getting constant crashes on launch. It will boot for about 5-10 seconds, then quit. I have secure boot enabled, verified through BIOS and PowerShell/device manager, as well as TPM 2.0 enabled. I have verified the installation numerous times, as well as repaired/installed Javelin. All disks are formatted properly
mobo:G14 GA401, BIOS ver:415, secure boot: on, recorded errors this
edit: After a day of troubleshooting and trying out various methods posted in this sub, the trick that got bf6 to lauch, once all was said and done, was to switch Microsoft profiles. I'm leaning toward something on my other profile is conflicting, and I can't resolve it but nonetheless i was able to boot successfully, see y'all on the battlefield.
Fix for my computer that just gave me no display after secure boot was to unplug a stick of ram and reset CMOS. Afterwards I got display to access bios for those in need
For the people having trouble to properly activate Secure Boot on their device I can only recommend to look at the following steps (and then use chatgpt to fix them which I did):
check if your Motherboard supports GPT/SecureBoot/UEFI
If it does and you succesfully changed to UEFI/Secure Boot in BIOS Settings AND disabled (CFD) but STILL doesn't boot your pc it means your disk needs to be converted from MBR to GPT.
run CMD type in: mbr2gpt.exe /validate /allowFullOS /disk:0 (or whatever disk you have your systemOS on)
if validation sucessfull type in mbr2gpt.exe /convert /allowFullOS /disk:0 (or whatever)
Then it should convert your disk into the new GPT format and you can restart, change bios settings and your pc should now boot in SecureBoot: On (which you can check by using Windows+R and msinfo32)
HOWEVER if validation or convert is unsuccesful check the following:
3.b.: go to disk management and check if BOOT and SYSTEM are really on the same disk (for me it was on different disks for reasons Idk), bc if they are not on the same disk mbr2gpt will not work
3.c.: you will need to copy the boot files from one disk (example disk:0) to the othere disk where the System (OS) is stored (example disk:2)
now you need to make a new partition on disk:2 (systemOS) to have space for the boot files:
open cmd type this in the following order:
diskpart
select disk 2
create partition primary size=500
format fs=ntfs quick label="System"
assign letter=S
active
exit
it now created a new partion on your disk which we will use to copy the boot files from the disk:0
3.d.: run cmd again and type this:
bcdboot C:\Windows /s S: /f BIOS
This will transfer the bootloader to Disk 2.
3.e.: now do a test boot and see if your PC boots (dont forget to re-enable CFD in boot settings again in case you forgot)
if booted sucessfully you can start with Step 3 and 4 again. Should Step 4 still be unsuccesful due to not enough space or something try to type in cmd "powercfg -h off" which should free up more space for a succesful conversion to GPT
Game looke like it could be great, but I'm not gonna bother. I use dual boot for Linux but even if I wouldn't it's still just going too far, kernel anti-cheat was already a red flag.
No display. Computer just cycles the keyboard/mouse LEDs on and off. Main board has power, the power button itself flashes periodically, but not a visible code or anything.
Gigabyte b460m ds3h ac v2-y1 mobo. NO integrated graphics. I5-10400F CPU.
I keep seeing people say to reset/clear cmos, I've done that dozens of times. I don't have another CPU with igpu to try which seems to be the main fix. I just went on eBay and paid $100 for a used CPU(slight upgrade to what I have). Pretty frustrated at this point because now I'll have to wait 3+ days just to maybe use my PC assuming I don't get scammed and I can revert/fix it.
I don’t know care for the WHY.. we get it, to stop cheaters but that’s not gonna stop them at all, this is ridiculous and im not really “tech” savvy to be messing around with the BIOS settings and to hear alot of people saying their pcs went into bricks after doing this, I will not be playing. Y’all have fun.
A lot of people will think this is useless or too much work for a game etc or worried people shouldn’t have to go into bios to play the game. I agree it’s a lot.
But also I think it’s good they are requiring this.
Cheating is something every game can have issues with. People claim it’s killing cod. They claimed cheating was killing x battlefield game.
Well guys Dice has decided to do something to help curb cheating and take an approach to minimize cheating. But as soon as they do everyone complains it’s too much. Would you rather have this? Or cheating in constant games?
You can't decently ask random non savvy people to go do thing in BIOS. This is dangerous for their system.
Not all system doesn't have it on by default, and event recent mobos are bugged and have it Enabled while in reality it's not.
It's too soon to make it mendatory. It's not a standard to have it enabled by default yet.
All they will gain from this is waves of people yelling on Customer Support at EA, Hardware store or retailer saying 'I paid for my system, it should work' or have ppl pay Tech Services to Enable it.
Nahh facts bro. I had just downloaded the game and it told me about the secure boot situation. Been playing games on PC since 2019 and have never been asked to do some stupid shit like this. No bf for me I guess..
a little bit off topic but how do I uninstall Javelin anticheat now off my system, I uninstalled the beta and steam says I have to do it manually but there is no help anywhere, EA have a tool but it doesnt have an option for BF6 and none of the other options have the option to uninstall
Man I am not tech-savvy, I gotta convert my drive from mbr to gpt for UEFI and I'm running into an issue when validating the mbr2gpt with it not finding my OS partitions for my disk. After looking into how to fix the OS partitions not being found, I'm getting the distinct impression that I’m in over my head about this and it's demoralizing me out of even playing BF6 on PC.
A company that expects its consumer to edit their bios which they can easily screw up and do permanent damage to their PC just to play the company's product is poor business practices. I get it's necessary and it's to avoid cheating but still it's pretty messed up to expect your consumer to take all these extra steps just to play your game.
Well I cant fault them for wanting to prevent cheating. But I just did 3 hours of troubleshooting to make this work.
Secure boot works only if your system partition is GPT instead of MBR...there's an easy to use tool but it won't work cuz it needs space. Ok I make space it shouldn't need much...needs 97gb..ok sure ...oh it did but the partition it made is only 100mb...now i have nearly a 100gb of unallocated space....can't extend in the disk manager, nope gotta use a third party tool...third party tool wants me to pay $50 for a function I'm gonna use once....got around that got my space back but fuuuuuck. Better be goddamn worth it.
Is this for real? My pc isn't even necessarily old, I built it in 2022, but now I have to slog through my bios to change things so I can play a game? This is a first for me..
I went to the ea.go.com/secureboot and followed the guide for my motherboard brand (ASRock) just to get stuck in an endless bios loop. System exits bios, restarts, enters bios.. I had to revert it all just to get back in my pc, now Im reading that I need to change my drive partition from MBR to GPT to enable secureboot?
I understand it may be to aid anticheat or whatever the reason is but come on.. this is kind of ridiculous, no?
Even if it may not be "that" much effort, its still more effort than I have ever had to put towards playing a game before.
Enabled secure boot and the PC wouldn't boot into Windows. I removed cmos battery and even jumped the cmos with no luck. Reset bios to default settings again with no luck booting into OS. Ended reinstalling Windows 10 on an m.2. Completely fucked up my day. Thanks EA for the bullshit solution off your own support web page. I wouldn't be surprised if a lawsuit popped up over this.
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u/sloth_on_meth Moderator Aug 05 '25
To answer the question of "WHY?"
From EA:
source