z400 workstation gives 6 beeps & red light after changing bios setting

[Mohitgeorg]

Dear Vinne,

I am facing same problem in my Z400 Work Station.

Can you please help in fixing the problem?

[Mohitgeorg]

Hiiii......

I am using Graphic Card FIRE PRO v 3700 256 MB RH.

[noskill]

Hi, I am new to this forum and know this is an old post. I also had the same issue as the initial post execpt on a Z600 gen 2. I did as prescribed but used a PCI-E card in a non-graphics PCI-E slot. I did have the wrong slot setup as compute. I do have one question however, I have two gen 2 systems; z600(backup system) and a production Z800. The Z800 has a quadro 4000 primary graphics and a quadro 5000 as the "compute" card. Similar to that the z600 has a quadro 2000 primary and a 4000 as a "compute" card. I run davinci resolve and avid media composer, yes I do now that the Z600 is not a certified avid system but it is a backup only. In either case can the secondary card be setup as a compute card only? I am afraid to try again since it took me sooo long to recover the Z600.  Any assistance in this would be much appreciated.

[j77h]

Product: HP Z400 6-DIMM workstation
p/n: VS933AV (in Australia) 
BIOS version: 3.15

I had the same problem. 

After disconnecting everything I simply waited until the light on the mobo went out, then pressed the power button and held it for 20 seconds, then held the 'clear cmos' button for 20 seconds. This did NOT work.

Fortunately I have a spare Z400, so I let the bricked Z400 sit disconnected for a few weeks. Then on July 22 I took out the battery for a few hours. After putting the battery back in, I pressed the 'clear cmos' button again. When I put it all back together, it did exactly what the manual says it should do, and was usable again. So some part of that procedure DID work. 

[Edit (Aug 2) : At this point I thought Vinne's comment, that "the only way to change it back is by hooking up an old PCI VGA card", was not true. A few hours later I realized that I had moved the video card from slot 2 to slot 4, to get to the battery more easily, and this is probably why it booted OK. Thought I tried moving the card when the problem first arose; definitely did try with the card out. But if at the start I did not set 'compute' on slot 4, and did not try the card in slot 4, then moving the video card to slot 4 this time is probably what made it work.]

Later I'll try to reset this BIOS again, using Dan_WGBU's suggestion of pressing the power button several times, and report back.

Edit (reporting back) :

Resetting the BIOS (when it is working normally) is very easy. Pressing the 'clear cmos' button works. Removing the battery (without pressing the button) also works.

If it's so easy, why could I not clear the BIOS weeks ago, when I was getting 6 red flashes?

Thinking that maybe there's something different about that wrong compute setting, I went into the bios and put that setting on again (i.e. enabled compute, this time on both slot 2 and slot 4). 

Yes, there is something different about it.
I have not been able clear the BIOS again. 
Will let it sit overnight, disconnected, with the battery out, and see if that clears it.

Edit 2:

No, that did not clear it. 

Trying the password reset procedure did not clear it either:
with the password jumper off, it still did 6 red flashes.

Edit 3:
"Crisis Recovery" aka "Boot Block Recovery": 
Simply tried booting with a jumper on the "crisis recovery" header, to see what would happen.
8 red flashes, then a message on the screen (yes, it used the video card).
After reboot without the jumper, it still does 6 red flashes.

Edit 4 (Aug 2) :

Have flashed the BIOS (to v 3.57).
It does not solve this problem.

[Note: to flash the bios this way, all you need
is a FAT32 usb stick with 7G3_0357.bin on it.
No need to be bootable, no CD iso, no DOS.]

Conclusions: 

The 'clear cmos' button works fine normally, 
but the 'compute' setting is not cleared by it. 

The machine beeps 6 times because it cannot find a usable video card. 
The 'compute' setting in the BIOS makes your current video card unusable.

If you can't change the 'compute' setting in the BIOS, 
you have to adjust the video card situation. 

If you did not set compute on the other slot, simply move the card.

If you set compute on both PCI-E-16 slots, you need to get another card (temporarily at least).

An old PCI-32 VGA card may work, because the PCI-32 slots are not affected by the compute setting. (Not sure that every such card will be accepted.)
Another possiblity might be to get the kind of card that the compute setting works with. (I saw its name mentioned somewhere, will have to find it again.)

Edit 5 (Aug 12) :

I bought an old PCI-32 VGA card off ebay (for 20 AUD). It arrived today. It worked. My spare Z400 is usuable again.

The card doesn't have a name I know, but the chip is an S3 Trio64.

"the kind of card that the compute setting works with": Nvidia Tesla is the only type I've seen mentioned, for which new retail prices start at about $14,000.

Btw, when changing BIOS settings I noticed that every slot has a 'compute' setting. Just don't turn them all on  😉

-- Jon

[aldywaani]

hi, probably this issue way outdated already. But i've found other way of resolving the issue. 

But i'm on Z800. And i wrongly set the PCIe slot 2 setting for my GPU to 'Compute'.  After unplugging everthing except the mainboard & RAM, the system still Flashing & Beeping Red 6x. 

What i do is simply use the other PCIe2 x16 on Slot 7 for my NVIDIA Quadro 6000 GPU. It work.  But since i reset CMOS and removed the battery i need to restore the BIOS settings

(Edited): 

Resetting CMOS & removing Battery with no PCIe Devices installed not solving the issue. the system still boot with Flashing Red 6 times, even with no Hard drives at all.  No matter how many times you reset the CMOS.

- Solution: we need to installed back (any) Graphic Card on other PCIe slots available on your system in order to properly boot up and reset BIOS to default state. 

[DariusV]

There is no need to buy an old VGA card. Apparently the PCI-16 card goes into the PCI-8 slot (as it is open-ended). And guess what - it does the trick.

[j77h]

---

@DariusV wrote:

There is no need to buy an old VGA card. Apparently the PCI-16 card goes into the PCI-8 slot (as it is open-ended). And guess what - it does the trick.

---

Great. Thanks.
I had no idea, as I never studied PCI Express.

Had to go searching to make sure you're right;

this page is quite clear:
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-pci-express/4/

To be more precise and pedantic I'd say 
"no need to buy an old PCI card" and 
"put a PCIe-x16 card in a PCIe-x8 slot".

There's an x8 slot next to each of the two x16 slots, all black.
The two plain-PCI slots are white, at the bottom.

[Aurel_Peti]

Hi bro. Dont worry. Just follow these steps:

- Unplug your AC cable

- Remove your Graphic Card and put it to another Slot

- No need to remove battery

- Press and Hold the CMOS button for approx. 5 secs

- Plug your AC cable and then turn your computer on

I also experienced the same problem once, and it work just like this i listed above.

Hope to work for you too.

[j77h]

---

@Aurel_Peti wrote:
...

- Remove your Graphic Card and put it to another Slot

...

---

You're right Aurel.

It seems simple when you put it like that.

But the other slot must not have 'compute' turned on. 

Pressing 'clear CMOS' does not clear the 'compute' setting. 
(That's an error in BIOS design, imho.)

DariusV said you can put a PCIe-x16 card in a PCIe-x8 slot. 
This can help if an x8 slot doesn't have 'compute' turned on. 

If you turned 'compute' on for all slots,
it looks like there's no cheap solution. 
You'd need a very expensive card that can 'compute'.

-- jon

[perelomych]

Ihave z440, and I solved this trouble by inserting nVIDIA gt740 to slot2 (PCI-e x16), power-on, then enter bios setup.