One reader found that his PC wasn’t able to boot in UEFI mode. He kept getting the error message: ‘OptionRom Authenticate fail’. It turned out his graphics card isn’t compatible with UEFI booting. Here’s how to deal with problems with OptionRom. QUESTION I’ve upgraded my PC recently with a new motherboard and installed Windows 8.1. It supports UEFI firmware, so I decided to take advantage of the fast startup capabilities and installed the operating system in UEFI mode. Windows boots just fine, but every time I see the error message ‘OptionRom Authenticate fail’ at the top of the display. Furthermore, the initial startup screen only appears if I have the monitor plugged into the integrated graphics adaptor on the motherboard. Windows itself then starts up on the display plugged into my graphics card. If I disable the UEFI boot and switch to legacy mode, the error message doesn’t appear, but now Windows 8.1 won’t boot. I can use Windows 8.1 as things are, but it’s annoying having to swap the monitor over to the motherboard connector to get into the UEFI settings. Can you explain what’s happening? HELPROOM ANSWER The ‘OptionRom’ error message shows that, unfortunately, your graphics card isn’t compatible with UEFI booting. This is the case with many older graphics cards that were released before support for the feature was available. In some cases, you may be able to obtain a firmware upgrade, called a VBIOS, which will enable the cards to boot successfully in UEFI mode, so you may have luck going back to your graphics card vendor and asking if an update is available. See all How to articles.