Hp Z220 Painfully slow startup after BIOS update

[wildschwein]

Hi all,

A bit of an issue. I recently acquired a HZ220 Workstation which I want to set up for recording music. I worked through some of the driver ibnstalls after doing a fresh install of Windows 7. After I updated the BIOS with the recommended latest version from the HP download site the machine is now brutally slow on start up. It takes around 10-15 minutes to boot into Windows. I have tried a BIOS recovery with the Windows key + B and holding down on the power button for 2-3 seconds but this machine doesn't seem to respond to that. I started again by reinstalling Windows 7 just to rule out other driver updates as the culprit but the slow start up has continued.

I tried reflashing the BIOS to an earlier version but it failed and said there was an error and the word corrupt was in the error code. The machine stills boots just slowly and it wasn't doing this before I installed that update -- it was orginally booting in the 2 minute sort of time frame and this PC has some serious grunt under the hood (at least for my needs) so it should be more responsive than this.

Anyone have any ideas?

[DGroves]

if you want help you need to actually provide USEFULL information, describing the revision bios update you installed and any error messages during the update, then describing any current error messages "EXACTLY" as posted onscreen

also describing the current hardware cpu/ram/drive (ssd or mech)

checking and listing any errors in device manager is also a required step

[wildschwein]

Hi, I have snipped some images out of the HP Advisor -- which is a very cool pice of software. I think the error code related to trying to deliberatley install an earlier version; I'm not going to try to recreate it. The latest version of the BIOS is noted above but maybe I need to tweak things. Everything in Device Manager is now without any yellow warnings so I belive all the drivers are correct/up to date. It still takes around 5-7 minutes to boot up. There is no real load on this machine other than the OS. I haven't installed much other than SOPHOS and Malwayre Bytes and Chrome (along with drivers and HP apps); just so I can keep things clean online while I'm doing updates etc. I don't have plans to have this machine connected it wil primarly be for runnuing an older version of Pro Tools.

[DGroves]

several things, 

1. AMT should be disabled it's only usefull in a domain or remote access enviroment and is a known security risk

2. disable the boot from Lan options

3. the latest Bios will not allow downgrades to previous versions (this can be overidden, but is not recomended)

4. again, do you get a bios error on startup?

5. does the system pause at a prompt or message during boot?

6. does windows start up quickly without any errors

7. you are using two diffrent virus programs which is NOT RECOMENDED, uninstall one of them

[wildschwein]

Hi,

Thanks for the advice. I will change the things you have noted and see how that goes tonight. I get no error message during boot up -- it just goes to the black Windows 7 loading screen and that's the part that takes around 7 minutes. Once Windows does load the thing runs like a dream -- no issues. 

Do you think the problem may lay with Windows? I can check msconfig and see what is going on in the start up.  As noted this is an almost bare bones install of Windows 7 at present.

[BambiBoomZ]

Wildschwein,

If the system was starting at a good speed after the reinstallation of Windows but not after the BIOS update, there is a strong possibility that the new BIOS is  running on default settings with some important difference to those used when reinstalling Windows. 

Consider going through the BIOS settings carefully and trying one change at a time.  In particular, check the settings related to the disk, especially the RAID mode.

There is some possibility that there is a driver conflict.  If there is no luck with BIOS settings, consider the possiblity that special drivers z.b., for a sound interface are causing the problem by conflict with the internal Realtek driver. 

I had a very difficult experience after upgrading BIOS v 3.91 to v. 3.92 in a z620 and it appeared to me that v.3.92 was written aso as to make reversion very difficult.  Eventually, thanks to Forum friend SDH, it was possible to use the "crisis recovery jumper" and reset to v. 3.91.  If you have no luck with BIOS settings,  that may be an option.  However, I don't know if the z220 has that feature or if the sequence of use is the same.

I'm sorry I can't say something very definite about this important problem.

BambiBoomZ

PS:  I'm organizing a z620 (Xeon E5-1680 v2/ 64GB / GTX 1070 Ti / Z Turbo Drive M.2 256GB) for some music production using a  Studiologic SL88 + Focusrite 2i4 + 2X Mackie HR824 studio  monitors

[wildschwein]

Hi,

Thanks for your response -- I appreciate any input. I will be running an old version of PT 8  LE with an Mbox 2 + JBL LSR305s. I also use Reaper quite a bit and play around in Live and Cubase just for some more MIDI options at times.

I will see if stripping out the audio driver helps a bit. I hadn't actually introduced the MBox interface into the equation until today and I'm not sure of the reults of that yet. I will get into the BIOS settings and see what I can do with the RAID settings. I'm only running an SSD in this PC and plan to work just on that drive -- will that influence the settings? I had planned to move away from the old school method of working on multiple magentic HDD drives where your record to a seperate drive than the PT system drive.

The cool thing is with the Performance Advisor software you can save diferent BIOS profiles so I will be taking advantage of that. The facory defaults are definitely set to go slow.

[wildschwein · Accepted solution]

Thanks for all the help. I have managed to resolve this. It was the Windows 7 Ultimate installation. I picked up a copy of Windows Professional media and downgraded (using the OEM key on the machine to authorise). The boot time is now about 30 seconds. The version of Ultimate I had was on a disc I've had for a decade and I had never used it but it's probably a hacked version. The Bios was never the issue.

Now I have a killer quick machine loaded with Pro Tools, Ableton LIve, Reaper, Cubase & Reason and I'm ready to make some music again!

[BambiBoomZ]

Wildschwein,

I'm very pleased that the situation is solved.

I believe that it is possible to obtain the HP recovery disks by submitting the serial number of the system to HP Support.  When those are installed, all the special drivers, utilities and etc. are loaded and the system recognizes and automatically activates the exact original version of Windows.  As I bought two z420's new, I have a V1 2-disc (copy) and v2 4-disc set of these. I highly recommend obtaining those disks, ready for the next re-installation. I'm sorry I didn't think of those before. 

What I would dearly like top have is an ISO version so that it's possible to load from a USB as required by M.2 drives.  I assume it's possible to combine the disks into a single ISO but will the system automatically search the files during the installation?

It appears you have a very good music production system configuration.  I'm looking forward to adding music production to the the z620 here, using Ableton Live 9, Sibelius, and a good range of orchetstral MIDI samples plus Hauptwerk vitual pipe organ. The last dedicated music production system I had was a 2008 HP Elite with a Q6600 4c@ 2.66 having an M-Audio 24/192 PCI MIDI card.  That system is still perfectly reliable, although heavy tracking introduces noticeable latency.

BambiBoomZ 

[DGroves]

you can make your own updated recovery disk/usb key using a generic HP branded win 10 or win 7 disk, the program ntlite, and grabbing the HP enterprise driver package, that has all nessary drivers  for a specific workstation in easy to slipstream "inf" format

you can also intergrate all current (at the time you make the disk) Ms updates into the image

i currently have z800/z820/z420/z620 images which are updated one month behind the current ms update as i allways wait to make sure a update has no supprises