HP Z840 does not boot with blank screen

[Phille133]

Hi,

I have a Z840 with the following specs:

P/N: M3U63US#ABA

- 1 CPU E5-2680 v4 on Socket 0

- 128GB DDR4 RAM on slot 1,2,3,4 for 1 CPU config

- AMD Raedon R7770 on slot2 (CPU0 3x6)

- The Power supply passed the BIST test (solid green LED and fans on)

The system can power on but it does not seem to boot. All fans are on, Fan on VGA card is also working. 

There is no signal on the monitor. No beep, Front and rear LED are solid white.

 Here are what I tried:
- Remove all RAM and turn it on => Beep 5 times, and red LED flashing
- Put the RAM back, remove VGA card and turn it on => Same behavior when the VGA was plugged in (Power on, fans on, no beep, white LEDs)

- Try with other VGA cards (Quadro NVS 295, Quadro FX380): Same behavior with the R7770

 Can you please help me find out what could be the issues with my WS?

Does Z840 support non-HP VGA cards like mine?

Thanks,

Phil

[DGroves]

since all of the cards you have tried are non UEFI.......................IE-older Legacy bios cards that should give you a major clue!!!

while the z840 does support both legacy or UEFI for video it's a one or the other selection in the bios

i recommend you do a clean "factory" bios reset as this will cause the default video setting to become legacy

note that simply pressing cmos reset is not a clean factory reset, all that does is load in the users custom default settings

for clean factory, remove pwr cord press pwr button till light/beeps stop

remove side cover, remove cmos batt and press cmos reset button 5 sec

reinstall cmos batt/side cover,pwr cord and power on then enter bios and set time/date and any other options

DO NOT SET UEFI FOR VIDEO, LEAVE AT LEGACY

[Phille133]

Thank you!

I did a clean factory as you described. I saw that after the clean factory reset the fan spin faster so I can confirm that I did the clean factory correctly. 

But the problem is still there (no display signal)

[DGroves]

the issue is either the video card or the monitor/video cable

try a different video input, most monitors have DVI/HDMI to select from

[Phille133]

Thanks,

The monitor, cable, VGA card are good. They work fine with other system.

I tried to flash the BIOS firmware using BBR jumper but does not work also (I don't hear any beep as described in HP document)

[DGroves]

if you started a bios recovery, you may have corrupted the existing bios

to many people think a bios flash/recovery will fix anything when in actuality all it does is cause another issue due to the partial flash causing a bios issue 

at this point you might want to consider having a HP authorized repair shop look at it