A Redditor identifying as gaseousgalaxy posted that certain older NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards with UEFI-capable video BIOS could encounter boot failures when Windows secure boot is enabled because the cards´ UEFI GOP (graphics output protocol) security certificate expires in June 2026. UEFI GOP provides display output during firmware initialization and the boot process, and secure boot only allows binaries chained to valid, time-sensitive certificates in the UEFI database to run. If the GOP signature has expired, the firmware may refuse to load the video BIOS, preventing any display output during early boot.
When the GOP fails to load under secure boot, systems can present a black screen before the BIOS or UEFI setup appears, blocking access to system settings, OS installers, or recovery media. The post notes an important caveat: if an operating system is already installed the machine may still complete boot and reach the login screen. In that case, Windows can be used to launch the UEFI setup program on the next boot, allowing a user to manually select boot media or take other recovery actions despite the initial lack of firmware display output.
The report warns of a particular risk to machines that rely on a discrete GPU to complete POST because they lack integrated graphics. Those systems could be left in a ´soft´ brick state, unable to boot until the graphics card´s video BIOS is updated with a valid signature or the card is replaced. Updating the motherboard´s UEFI firmware will not fix the problem because the expired signature resides in the video BIOS itself. The post also states that newer hardware may ship without the older 2011 certificate, since Microsoft no longer requires it, and that Microsoft could revoke the certificate via Windows Update´s dbx mechanism, potentially causing failures earlier than the certificate expiration date.
