TheZ840 boot problems after board install

[DishonestAbe]

Hi all - longtime lurker first time poster. I added a new M2 quad NVMe board to my Z840 today and now it simply powers on for a second, turns off, repeats. I took out the PSU and plugged it in - solid green. I reset the BIOS via the button, nada. Yanked the battery. Nada. No beeps, no red power led, and it happens as soon as I plug the power in - I don't even have to press the power button.

Did I somehow bork the MB (I was grounded when I swapped in the board) so no idea how I could have. Anything else I can try to revive the beast? Of course this happened the night before a large project kicks off.

I have returned everything back to its original state, and machine still won't power for more than a second, then repeat.

I need a beer. Or ten.

[SDH]

Oh, DishonestAbe, did you first tweak your BIOS to prepare for this adventure?

Did you read the HP Z Turbo Drive Quad Pro literature? That is an oldie but goodie. Did you upgrade your BIOS to the latest version?

You need to do that first, then plug in the card to its correct PCIe3 x16 slot as specified by the HP documentation, then go into BIOS and set that slot's bifurcation (more accurately "quadrification" for that slot) to x4x4x4x4. That properly splits the x16 true electrical lanes into four true x4 lanes. Each M.2 stick only needs x4 true electrical lanes for each to run at full speed. But that won't work well without a somewhat recent BIOS upgrade.

You put your boot drive into the primary (0) top socket on the ZTD Quad Pro, and the 3 others (actually none other at this stage) into the other sockets (labeled1,2,3). I personally start with only the intended single boot M.2 drive in socket 0 to keep things simple (and because that is what HP recommends). No other M.2 or SATA SSD should be attached at this stage, so BIOS does not need to think too hard.

Then you load the cloned image of your original 2.5" form factor SATA SSD onto that single M.2 SSD and set BIOS to factory defaults and tweak that to boot from the M.2 drive, and hope for the best. Later you can plug in your other 3 M.2 SSDs into sockets 1, 2, 3. I like to prep those ahead of time using Diskpart to delete all partitions on each, do a MBR partition on each using Diskpart, and finally do a NTFS format on each from within the Microsoft Disk Management utility using the long method (uncheck default of "Quick"). I do that on another workstation before plugging them into the Quad Pro. For that process I use a utility ZTD gen 1 card in another HP workstation that can use that type of card (such as ZX20 and up).

Let us know how it goes, and if you need any HP documentation.

[DishonestAbe]

BIOS was current and 4x4x4x4 bifurcation enabled just prior to the board install. Boot M2 drive is in slot 0, adapter card placed in the appropriate slot. 

I was originally booting from this prior ,and was just adding the card to add capacity. I've placed the original M2 back into it's original adapter and reinstalled it, and nothing has resolved. Still won't boot, beep, anything.

[SDH]

Well, you did things right. Can you even get into BIOS? I've seen these ZX40s lock up on their CMOS. All it takes is one bad electron... I'd do the deep level of CMOS reset with the mains disconnected, and the motherboard battery out, and the standard deep CMOS reset steps with the push and hold the start button and everything that could bridge power into the motherboard disconnected including the video cable(s). And the wait and repeat. Your BIOS should reset to factory defaults after that.

Hopefully that will be enough. If not, consider putting in a 2.5" SATA SSD and try loading that using a HP Cloud Recovery image downloaded via the link I provided a day or so ago on another post. You'll need your serial number and the HP SoftPaq I gave the path to, released this summer. IIRC you'll also need a 32GB USB for that, but it won't fill the whole thing. Just demands that as price of admission. Your Z workstation will be down towards the bottom of the very long dropdown of supported HP devices to choose from.

[DishonestAbe]

Ok I've done a deep CMOS reset a few times and it's the same thing. Unplugged every drive, card, battery, hit the BIOS reset and held it for a minute, held the power button down for a minute, etc. Repeated 4 times with no change. Do you think changing the drive will really help? It's not even getting to POST so I'm skeptical that will do anything, but if you think it could work I'll do it. Thanks.

[SDH]

That was my last hope and I doubt it will work too but given no POST chances are very slim. Sounds like something on the motherboard got nuked during the ZTD Quad Pro card install. Still, worth a try.

[DGroves]

perform a power supply (BIST) test, read the service manual on how to do this

i've seen people install pci-e cards wrong damaging either the card motherboard and/or the pci-e socket inspect the card socket carefully

does the system start and then shutdown right away or is there a slight pause?

[DishonestAbe]

BIST passes. The machine turns on for maybe a second (seems less than that) then turns off. Waits a second then repeats.

I've looked at the board with a magnifying glass and honestly cannot find any indication of damage to the slot or the mobo. I'm at a loss. Ordered a replacement mobo yesterday so will start over. Now I'm terrified to try again lol. Thanks for the assistance you guys have given. It's truly appreciated.

[DGroves]

i've run into the issue you describe  several times on z820 systems and on two of the three systems i had this issue on retesting the removed boards several months later, it was found the motherboards now worked! never determined why

(third was determined to have a corrupted bios caused by the bios chip itself failing)

only thing we could summarize was that one of the boards resettable (self healing) fuses may have been the cause