Bizarre Startup_z620

[BambiBoomZ]

Mates,

I'm in the process of upgrading a z620, now 2X Xeon E5-2690 / 40GB DDR3-1600 ECC / Quadro K2200 / Seagate SATA II 750GB / Windows 7 Professional 64-bit.

Windows was loaded from the recovery partition of the newer z420 (2015) in the office and which runs BIOS v. 3.84. That 2105 HP / Windows activated automatically, started normally, and has gone though many, many updates already.

The thing is, after updating the BIOS from quite far back to 3.88 using the in- Windows BIOS /.EXE method, on startup, the screen goes through a series of messy screens- perhaps 8 or more before starting Windows, and some appear to be repeats. A number mention 'American Megatrends" and a few times it paused on prompt to enter RAID setup.  

> Are there two or three copies of the BIOS in a row?

> Do I need to update more of the chipset and storage drivers?

Both of the z420's in the office (with SSD's) startup with only a brief pause on the first, HP screen and then directly to Starting Windows.

The setup drive, an elderly Seagate 750GB is extremely  slow  (Passmark rating 574) so I thought it may be that the disk is just running through something that I don't see at SSD's speed.  However I have a new HP Z Turbo (256GB AHCI) and when I put it in the z620 it presented the same set of screens before settling on "Starting your system for the first time".

I tried reverting the BIOS to the previous verion 3.84 which is the same as the two z420's,  but it would not run as there is some file missing that apprently is present in an HP recovery partition.

Today I saw that there is a new  (8 Aug 16) BIOS for z420  /z620, v. 3.90 and I installed that. also using the Windows mthod  Same result with all the avalanche of start up screens.

I've looked through the "preferred method" of copying files to the root directly, and running a series of commands in a CMD,  but I have no idea how to do a number of the tasks: mapping the file path to a network drive.  The  instructions are just not detailed enough.

The systems seems to run normally, but there has be something wrong and I wonder about future stability. This problem is stopping me from completing the upgrade, loading programs and finishing the upgrade.

> How do I correct this?

> Is there a way to clear rhe UEFI BIOS, without removing the chip, and starting over?

Thanks very much!

Cheers,

BambiBoom_Z

[SDH · Accepted solution]

That is surely not normal.

I am running the latest 3.90 Z620 BIOS and in the HP drivers section for the Z620 they really seem confused.  That BIOS shows up as being for the Z420, Z620, Z820, and does not show up as the latest BIOS for a number of Z620 operating systems.

It is, in fact, for the Z420 and the Z620.  3.90 is the latest, not 3.88.

I'd clear your CMOS as is properly done following the instructions in the technical and service manual exactly.  Make sure that all peripherals are unplugged (they can feed back power into the motherboard even if it is off), and the main power cord must be unplugged for enough time that the capacitors unload.

I run all our Z620s in legacy mode, and if you PM me with your email address I can send you my hand tuned Z620 replicated setup file that lets you clone my settings.  Read up on Replicated Setup in this forum, if you wish.  This is for Z620s running off a single SSD, with a documents HDD.  The tuning is a bit different for whether you run 1 or 2 video cards.

I usually update BIOS from within BIOS, but for this update I did it using the HPQFlash from the SoftPaq and all went well.  It is a big update, and took over 5 minutes.

[BambiBoomZ]

SDH,

Ref: "Clearing and Resetting the CMOS" Pg. 160 :  HP Z220 SFF, Z220 CMT, Z420, Z620, and Z820 Workstations Maintenance and Service Guide:     http://h20628.www2.hp.com/km-ext/kmcsdirect/emr_na-c03424977-1.pdf

I cleared CMOS by > unplugging the z620> pressing the power button to discharge > waiting awhile> pressing the small yellow button for 5 seconds (No. 35 on the z620 system board diagram pg. 26 next to what I think is the UEFI module)  >  As soon as I plugged the system back in, the power light was on. > The system booted to a screen that prompted pressing F1 to configure.  > I did so, it offered replicated setup and factory default. > I selected the factory default setup, > saved > and exited. >The system rebooted and behaved normally, and on the startup screen showed the BIOS as v. 3.90 to which I had updated yesterday. > A shutdown and restart confirmed all is well.

I'd panicked a bit yesterday as I saw a long post on corrupted UEFI modules having to be replaced. This is the first time in 20 years of using computers that I ever had an issue with BIOS.

All along,  I've seen that the z420 and z620 are paired as far as BIOS version. It's interesting that the recovery disks that arrived with our two z420's both say that they are for the z420 and z620- but don't mention the z820.  As mentioned,  I had used the recovery partition of the later z420 to load Windows to the z620 and it did so without asking for any additional drivers and activated automatically.

Related Question:  That the BIOS and system recovery software is the same for the z620 and z420,  gives me some hope that I might use the z620 to setup a new C: drive for the z620 and a z420 simultaneously.  The new drive is an HP Z Turbo Drive 256GB AHCI.  My idea is to setup it up over two or three days in the z620 -it's a 16-20 hour process-  then clone it to the Intel 730 in the z420, transfer the Intel 730 to the z620 and use the Z Turbo in the z420.  The z420 is the 3D modeling system and the z620 is the analytical, simulation, and rendering system (replaces Dell Precision T5500).  The same software is used on both systems, but only one iteration at a time. If you have any comments on this idea, that would be appreciated.

Thanks very much for your reply. 

Cheers,

BambiBoom

[SDH]

That is great news, and I do have some input on your new question.  Here is the long answer:

The HP Restore partition/discs often are for more than one type of workstation (listed on the disc label), and the builds for each of those results in the HP OEM COA being identical (if you probe the COA serial number with appropriate tool).  However, that same HP OEM COA will be on many other workstations around the world built with other Restore disc sets.  So, it is not just the COA that counts..... there is another unseen part of the OEM cross check process that looks at the hardware and sees if it is HP-approved for that build.  Reportedly it checks some unique ID feature in the workstation's BIOS.  If all checks out OK the build will become "activated" even without any internet access back to Microsoft.

A build that checks out OK will run as a clone on another HP workstation that also checks out as OK, and that is what HP does.  You can too.  When these builds are created more drivers are present in the drive's hidden archive than are needed for that particular hardware it is running on.  That is the case for all Microsoft OS installs.  If you take a clone build and plug it into another similar workstation on the approved list it generally will boot up, find any needed alternative drivers, and require nothing more than a reboot to work fine, auto-activated.  This assumes the build was made from a Restore installer that is for both types of HP workstations (which is exactly your case).  Both will have identical HP OEM COAs, and those COAs will be identical to my HP OEM COAs here on my Restore based Z600/Z620/Z640 builds, and others.

Next step:  If you take your Restore clone and put it into another HP workstation that is similar but not on the approved list for your Restore installer it will generally still boot up and find proper drivers, do its reboot, and yet will not be "activated" when you navigate to Computer/Properties.  It will generally give you 3 days to enter a non-OEM COA.  For W7Pro64 that can be from a Microsoft System Builder kit you buy, for example, or one may have come with the original workstation.

W10 will be different..... a workstation that has been W10-activated has its UUID (and other things) registered centrally with Microsoft.  A W10 master build for a Z620 will be able to work on any other Z620 that also is W10-activated, independent of the HP OEM COA system.

Short answer is that your idea will work, no problem.  

You can see that those Restore discs are valuable and important, and need to be filed away carefully so you can find them later.  If there is a Restore partition on the original drive that came in the workstation I like to capture the Restore software onto a USB thumb drive (a 10GB high quality one is what I use for each workstation), and I file that also with the Restore discs.  You can only capture once from each Restore partition, but a clean install from that thumb drive creates a fresh Restore partition that you can capture a Restore USB from, once, again.  So, you can have >1 backups if you wish for safety.  You can use a small fast stunt SSD for that type of thing.

[BambiBoomZ]

SDH,

At the same time, copy protections have increased on software, the reinstallation Windows has become more convenient.  we have four Dell Precisions, two single CPU and two dual,  and all can load Windows from the same recovery disk and activate automatically.  The only fuss was with a Precision T5500 when a PERC H310 RAID controller was added, but that was only a case of loading the driver on a USB drive. The Dell disk had the driver for PERC 6/i but not the newer H310. And, so far, the two HP z420's and z620 have been interchangable in that regard as well.

It's useful to know how that system works.  I appreciate the idea of filing a special USB with a clone of the recovery partiiton as I didn't know they could be used only once. I'll clone the one off the Z Turbo Drive- our first GPT partitioned one.

Thank you again for another thorough and informative reply.

Cheers,

BambiBoom_Z