Compaq Elite 8300 & odd start-up behaviours

[StephenCWLL]

I see there is a BIOS update for this PC that resolves slow startup but I'm unsure if it relates to my issue?

Initially the PC in question got it knickers in a twist from being powered off at the mains whilst taking an age to shutdown one day. I got it back into working order but ... and the customer assures me this has never happened previously ... it now doesn't always startup promptly. One can push the power button in and see nothing on the screen no matter how long you wait, or you can push the button in and it'll start up in a manner that has pregnant pauses of blank screens inbetween the normal windows startup and the logon screen. It's reasonably inconsistent. If you restart the PC from Windows though, it always seems to startup fine.

I see other threads where people talk about slow startups with this modal and a BIOS update is usually recommended but the only reference to starting up that I see in BIOS revision notes is one that says "Fixed intermittent S3 hang during the resume cycle."

Is this the slow startup issue? Is the behaviour I described the issue in question? I don't know what BIOS version it's on atm as not checked yet but it's a former business PC now in the hands of a customer for last 4 years so doubt it's had any BIOS updates since the customer has had it.

[DGroves]

try a system restore, if that does not fix the not starting when powered on you can backup the files, and perform a bios update using the DOS or from within the bios itself update options. updating the bios from within windows or when the computer is not powering on corectly is not recomended

 "Fixed intermittent S3 hang during the resume cycle." relates to the system resuming operation from a sleep condition

and has noting to do with a non power on condition

[SDH]

Another tip... my recall is that the E8300 is one of the HP workstations that needs to be "stepped up" during BIOS upgrading.  There are older BIOS versions that cannot be upgraded to the latest until you get them to a certain intermediate version.  From there you can step up to the most recent version.

I have that in my notes.... what version are you on, and I'll check and let you know.

And, be advised that you really really should read up in the forum here about updating BIOS from within BIOS.  Doing it from within your operating system is asking for a significant risk of disaster expecially if you are running Windows 10.

Corruption of you BIOS can result otherwise, and that is no fun at all.

[SDH]

Here's the quote from the latest release notes for the Z620 BIOS update to 3.94, and the E8300 uses the same type of BIOS and updates (not same version, of course).  We here know what "fail to boot" means:

The following fixes have been made in BIOS version 03.94:
-Fixes an issue where system could fail to boot after upgrading to Windows 10, version 1803.

[StephenCWLL]

Interesting, however the latest version I can see for E8300 is:

[StephenCWLL]

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@DGroves wrote:

try a system restore, if that does not fix the not starting when powered on you can backup the files, and perform a bios update using the DOS or from within the bios itself update options. updating the bios from within windows or when the computer is not powering on corectly is not recomended

 "Fixed intermittent S3 hang during the resume cycle." relates to the system resuming operation from a sleep condition

and has noting to do with a non power on condition

---

Yup, I didn't think the S3 power state was related, unless the PC actually goes into sleep mode by default even when you shutdown? It's possible, but unlikely I guess.

[StephenCWLL]

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@SDH wrote:

Another tip... my recall is that the E8300 is one of the HP workstations that needs to be "stepped up" during BIOS upgrading.  There are older BIOS versions that cannot be upgraded to the latest until you get them to a certain intermediate version.  From there you can step up to the most recent version.

I have that in my notes.... what version are you on, and I'll check and let you know.

And, be advised that you really really should read up in the forum here about updating BIOS from within BIOS.  Doing it from within your operating system is asking for a significant risk of disaster expecially if you are running Windows 10.

Corruption of you BIOS can result otherwise, and that is no fun at all.

---

Yup, I got the message from other threads to only do BIOS update through the BIOS/DOS 🙂

Yes, reading through the revision notes, one does need to do a little stepping up at times.

[SDH]

Stephen,

Your pic has not been released yet..... I'll assume it refers to the 03.07 latest version which is the latest for all 8300s (your SFF version is included).

There is a difference between the BIOS flash method and the DOS flash method.  My bias is that the BIOS flash method is the safest of all possible methods because the OS used then is the most primative (BIOS is an OS, loaded from firmware).  The DOS method uses a higher level of OS.  The W7 method is a higher level yet again, and W10Pro64 is even higher.  Go primative.

Added info:

DESCRIPTION: This package provides the HP Business Desktop System BIOS Package for 8300 models with a K01 BIOS.
EFFECTIVE DATE: June 20, 2018
SOFTPAQ FILE NAME: SP88543.exe (contains BIOS version 03.07)
SOURCE: https://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp88501-89000/sp88543.exe
ENHANCEMENTS: Provides latest Intel Microcode versions 0x20 for Ivy Bridge processors and 0x2E for Sandy Bridge processors.

HP doc on the latest BIOS for the mitigate CVE-2018-3639 and CVE-2018-3640 issue:

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c06001626     and in this doc is the link to get 03.07, same as above.

Nice Intel PDF from this month you can search in easily to find your particular processor: 

https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/sa00115-microcode-update-guidance.pdf