HP Z8-G4 New BIOS Problems w/ PixInsight

[silverlitz]

I am not a computer systems expert, but a power user.  In the past, I have never messed with BIOS settings, other than updating the BIOS.   Right now, I do not know if ME is turned on.  I will need to do a reboot and check UEFI.

I just check my drivers updates with HP's Software & Drivers site, and they had 2 updates for me: 

Intel Chipset Drivers WKS G4 SoftPaq

Intel Management Engine Driver

I noticed the ME update was released on 6/14/25, AFTER I changed the BIOS and started having problems.

I downloaded the Softpaqs from HP's Software & Drivers site.

Looking at my BIOS Event Log, I updated the BIOS right after getting my Z8 in Feb 2024.   I bought the Z8 as a refurb and it came with BIOS v2.21 which I immediately updated to v2.86 (which must have been a recommendation for one of the HP apps). 

As aside, I have had MUCH better luck with HP Z refurbs than buying new.  I have bought 3x Z400, Z840, and this Z8-G4 as refurbs.   These have generally been bullet proof, though the Z8 seems a little flakier (before my current issues) than the Z840 (best of the bunch).  I have also bought refurb: 2x Elitebook 840, ZBook G2, ZBook G3, and ZBook G4.  All of these laptops have been great, with the exception of ZBook G2 which will sometimes get VERY hot (and fan going full blast) for no particular reason.

The only one that I bought new was a Z440, and I have had multiple problems updating Windows on it, as the SSD was partition in a way that ran out of space for Updates after a while.  The 1st time it happened it was under warranty and HP Support walked me through the process to get it going again.   About a year, after getting the Z840 (astrophotography benefits from larger memory and more cores),  the Z440's update problem happened again, and it had not been updated in several years; but it was not being used.   In the past week, I cloned my Z8's boot drive (Windows 11P) onto a 1TB MVMe for the Z440 to solve its problems.   This is now being used by my wife, replacing a Z400.

[silverlitz]

Further looking at the BIOS Event log,  I see the ME FW Initiated Global Reset prior to the BIOS change, but they were very few.   The Z8 had not had a single BIOS Event in 9 months prior to the BIOS change, compared to MANY in the month since.

[silverlitz]

My Z8 BIOS has ME enabled, but AMT disabled.

After updating the ME FW and the other driver, but keeping ME enabled running PixInsight WBPP on a fairly small stack, the Z8 had the same bad behavior (freezing, JRiver music stuttering, cursor frozen) requiring the Z8 to be physically turned off.

Then I disabled ME, and tried the same PI WBPP on the same dataset, but without JRiver running.  The Z8 again exhibited the same bad behavior requiring the Z8 to be physically turned off.

Today, I tried PI WBPP on the same dataset three separate times but with different ME config, and every time the Z8 froze requiring the Z8 to be physically turned off.   This never happened before the v2.95 BIOS change.

[silverlitz]

The CPUs in my Z8 are 2x Platinum 8273CL (28 core each, 2.2 GHz).  I get the feeling these are more bespoke CPUs for a large tech company (Amazon, Microsoft, Google, ...) for AI purposes.  These are some of the highest benchmark CPUs for the Z8's socket.

[silverlitz]

I found BIOS v2.86 in my C:\SWSetup folder, and it was SP143200.  I burned the ISO onto a DVD, and tried to get UEFI to revert to v2.86.  When I tried to update the BIOS, the UEFI saw the ISO, but it failed, giving:

"BIOS update denied by system policy"

I checked my BIOS settings, and BIOS Rollback Policy was set to Unrestricted.  So, it does not seem that it is UEFI settings causing the problem.

I then changed BIOS Rollback Policy to Restricted, and the minimum BIOS was blank.  I then retried updating the BIOS and got the same error.  I did this within the UEFI session without an additional save change and reboot.  I got the same failure. 

Would saving the BIOS Rollback Policy to Restricted and saving/reboot allow reverting to v2.86?  Does the minimum BIOS field need to be populated?  How to populate the field?

[silverlitz]

I just did a test on another possible variable, the Platinum 8273CL CPUs.  I replaced them with Gold 6240, since the 8273CL was not an officially supported CPU for the Z8.  I ran PixInsight's Thread Performance Analysis, and it completed, taking 42mins; looking promising.  I then tried stacking 419x, large 62MPx images using the complete WBPP script.   Again, the Z8 (w/ 2x Gold 6240) locked up ~26 mins into this script, requiring a hard reboot.   It still looks like BIOS v2.95 has problems with PI's WBPP.

A few days ago, I received a bare-bones Z8 G4 box, extra heat sinks and RAM.  Expecting this unit will have an older BIOS, I will rebuild it with my Platinum 8273CL CPUs, fully loaded RAM, and many SSDs/HDDS, and then hopefully change the BIOS to v2.86 (keep it at v2.86).

[SDH]

Obviously, save out that lost softpaq you found. The .bin file is in there.

Read this post: HERE 

There is a way to enable some capabilities of the ZX40 motherboards by shifting the jumper on a 3-pin header from one set of 2 pins to the adjacent set of 2 pins. Go find that. Some of that has to do with the "crisis recovery" topic but my recall is that it also opens the option to back-flash BIOS.

Knowing how to present the .bin file to BIOS in the ZX40 and subsequent workstations is key information, in the link above.

[SDH]

Here you go... the fine details on that jumper in the ZX40 workstation are in the post below and are hopefully related to a solution for your issue too.

Take a look HERE 

[silverlitz]

SDH:

I tried your method, but UEFI still did not allow it.  

However, I checked within UEFI, and HP released a new BIOS v2.96.  I updated the old Z8 G4 box (w/ Gold 6240) to this new BIOS.  This BIOS was released after I informed HP of v2.95 problems.  Hopefully, this corrects the issue.

[silverlitz]

Yesterday, I built a "new" Z8 G4, using my "old" Platinum 8273CL, full 24x16GB RAM, and all my many SSD/HDDs (7x MVMe SSDs, 4x HDDs), using the bare-bones Z8 G4 I bought off eBay.  

As hoped for, this bare-bones had an old BIOS, v2.47.  I was able to update the BIOS to my preferred v2.86 from the DVD I burned.

Upon finishing and booting, I saw a Windows Update message saying it wanted to update to the "bad" v2.95 and would upon reboot.  So, I immediately rebooted and went into the UEFI to lock the BIOS at v2.86, and to my surprise I found that there was an unknown BIOS password.   I had to remove the PSWD jumper (and maybe other things as well) to eliminate this BIOS password.  Afterwards, I was able to get into UEFI and lock the BIOS.

Windows still has a pop-up notifying of the needed BIOS update to v2.95, but I expect the BIOS lock will prevent.

After reinstalling BIOS v2.86, my PixInsight WBPP runs without issue.  

Contrary to HP's assertion, BIOS v2.95 was the issue.