Secure Boot has become the latest gatekeeper for PC gaming thanks to EA’s launcher and its Battlefield series. Battlefield 2042 enforces Secure Boot for anti-cheat, and Battlefield 6 is already showing the same requirement in its beta. For some players it is just an annoyance. For others it leads to a full-on system failure that looks like dead hardware.
I ran into this myself on my own AM4 system during the Battlefield 6 beta. Windows insisted Secure Boot was enabled, my motherboard insisted it was enabled, and yet EA’s launcher refused to recognize it. After endless BIOS flips and hard freezes, I gave up and uninstalled. Then a friend tried the same thing on his older Intel-based rig to play Battlefield 2042. His PC didn’t just refuse the game. It refused to boot at all.
The Problem Starts
The system in question was built on a Gigabyte Z370P D3 motherboard with an Intel i5-9400F, a GTX 1650 Super, and 16 GB of DDR4. It had been a reliable gaming machine. He flipped the settings for Secure Boot, saved, rebooted, and immediately the system refused to POST.
No display, no BIOS splash screen, just five piercing beeps.
Gigabyte doesn’t publish an official beep code guide, but online resources suggest five beeps point to a CPU or GPU problem. That didn’t add up. How could a BIOS setting make perfectly healthy hardware act like it had died?
First Recovery Attempts
The first move was to reset the BIOS. We pulled the CMOS battery, left it out, then even swapped in a new one. Still five beeps.
I removed the GPU and tried connecting to onboard HDMI. No luck, same five beeps. I removed all four RAM sticks and powered on again. Still five beeps. At this point it looked like Secure Boot had locked the machine into an unrecoverable state.
Checking the CPU
Next step was to confirm the CPU. I removed the water cooler, pulled the chip, and confirmed it was an i5-9400F. The “F” suffix matters here because it means no integrated graphics. That explained why all my earlier attempts at using the motherboard’s video output failed.
Luckily, I had an i5-9500T in my parts bin. Slightly weaker, but it includes integrated graphics. I swapped it in, powered up, and finally saw the BIOS screen again.
Secure Boot Violation
With the GPU still removed and the system posting, the BIOS threw another error:
“Invalid signature detected. Check Secure Boot policy.”
The GPU Connection
Modern motherboards require a graphics card with a UEFI GOP (Graphics Output Protocol) driver when Secure Boot is enabled. Many older GPUs, like the RX 580 or early GTX cards, only support legacy VBIOS. Secure Boot blocks them completely, resulting in a black screen.
The odd part is that the GTX 1650 Super should fully support GOP. To rule out a corrupted state on the motherboard, even though it was already up-to-date, I downloaded the latest BIOS for the Z370P D3 (version F15), flashed it, and restored optimized defaults.
With that reset in place, I reinstalled the GTX 1650 Super. This time the system posted and displayed video output without issue.
Enabling Secure Boot the Right Way
At this point, I carefully reintroduced Secure Boot step by step.
First I disabled CSM support in the BIOS, which forces the system to operate purely in UEFI mode. I rebooted out of precaution (and also, cause it told me to) and got right back into the BIOS.
Then I went to the Secure Boot tab, enabled Secure Boot, set the mode to Standard, and reset the keys. I saved and rebooted, waiting for the inevitable failure. But instead, the system posted cleanly and loaded Windows.
I swapped the original i5-9400F back in alongside the GTX 1650 Super, and it continued to boot normally. The machine was back to full health.
Checking Windows System Information showed Secure Boot as fully enabled.
Lessons for Battlefield Players
This wasn’t a GPU failure. It wasn’t a CPU failure. It was Secure Boot colliding with EA’s requirements in a way that locked the machine until it was reset carefully. What happened here could happen to anyone enabling Secure Boot for the first time.
Its important to note, EA’s launcher is the trigger. Battlefield 2042 requires Secure Boot, and Battlefield 6 does as well. They provide some generic instructions (or suggest you look at your motherboard manufactures generic instructions).
Motherboard defaults vary. Many prebuilt systems ship with Secure Boot disabled, meaning users will run into this the first time they try to play thinking its an easy fix.
GPU firmware matters. Even newer cards can behave like legacy ones if their GOP is outdated or corrupted.
Spare hardware helps. Having a CPU with integrated graphics made recovery possible. Without it, this PC might have been mistaken for scrap.
Bigger Picture
Between my failed attempts to play Battlefield 6 on an AM4 build and my friend’s bricked Intel system while trying Battlefield 2042, it is clear EA’s Secure Boot enforcement is going to cause headaches for a lot of gamers.
For power users with spare hardware, the fix is tedious but doable. For everyday players, it could mean hours of frustration, a repair bill, or walking away from the game entirely.
Secure Boot has a place in system security and is required to be compatible for Windows 11, but making it mandatory for anti-cheat without better safeguards creates confusion and wasted time. It is not hard to see why many players look at stories like this and wonder if consoles might be easier.
Would you spend hours swapping CPUs and reflashing BIOS just to get EA’s launcher to approve your system, or is this the point where you tap out?
