Z230 Tower Boot Hiccup. HP logo twice. No Errors

[grazzie1]

Hi All!  This is my first post here. I recently purchased a Z230 Workstation Tower (i5-4690 20 GB Ram) and just recently installed Win 7 Prox64.

I noticed the POST bootup looks kind of erratic (showing the HP logo twice and the screen flashes on and off a few times) however there are no errors. It's been this way from the beginning even when I went to boot from DVD to install windows on a an HDD from another system.  (I purchased the Z230 w/o a HDD) I'm used to my older Lenovo system which shows the Lenovo  logo for a few seconds and that's it... very clean.

Is this normal? Even with very bare-bones system services running and a freshly installed installation, it takes about a minute from the time I hit the power button to the start of the wndows chime (I disabled the Windows login). At the 20 second mark,  I see the first HP logo (for like 2 seconds), then the monitor flashes a couple of times, and 5 seconds later,  I see the second HP logo ( for an instant). Then the screen stays dark and says "Windows Starting" and it takes another 30 seconds from there to the windows chime. 

I've tried changing/disabling things in the Bios and there is absoulely no change. I tried updating the bios to 1.61 but same thing. I even tried defaulting the Bios.  I even disabled the PXE NIC Option just so I don't have to see the "Initializing Intel Boot Agent 1.4.03"  and "Attempting boot from hard drive" messages flashing on the screen. 

Three questions please:  

Is this normal?

If I replace the primary HDD with an SSD, will I still this POST behavior?

I set the bios to Uefi and resintal Win 7 x64 to a GPT on an SSD will I still get this type of POST behavior?

Thank you so much.

[grazzie1]

Bascially the POST is hiccuping or double booting. At the bootup, (cold or restart) it seems to momentarily lose power but the power lamp stays on.

It displays the HP logo for 2 seconds, then monitor flashes on and off. And then it starts over again. This happens on every bootup and  it's been happening since I turned this PC on for the first time to install windows.  I replaced the power cable, and tried connecting straight into a wall outlet.  I've tried changing just about every Bios setting with no resolve.  I tried updating the Bios, and Resetting the Bios. (Actually resetting the bios made the OS unbootable and had to go through the whole system repair....  if this offers any hints) Any help will be greatly appreciated. Are there settings on the HDD or MOBO that may be off? Thx.

[DGroves]

the z230 has a uefi/legacy capable bios, and if uefi is enabled along with the "Legacy" bios functions the system will do the uefi boot, and then flash/reset the video display as it transitions to the legacy boot process

you system is working normally, and no bios settings should be changed as the factory bios settings are the correct ones for almost all users. only a select few need to disable the uefi or legacy bios to allow specific hardware to work corectly

[grazzie1]

Thank you for the reply. You said if I have both UEFI and Legacy both enabled I will get this flash/reset boot syptom I described as a double boot.  But I don't have the UEFI enabled at all. So why am I still getting this flash/reset boot symtom?  In the Boot Order, I have all UEFI devices disabled. In Secure Boot Configuration,  Legacy Support is Enabled, Secure Boot is Disabled, and Fast Boot is Disabled. I don't know of anywhere else I can disable UEFI to eliminate this flash/reset bootup. Thanks again.

[DGroves]

first of all, selecting a device in the bios (onboard network for example)  to use legacy does/will not disable UEFI

as far as i know you can not actually disable the Uefi boot on the z230, but as i don't have this model in use i'm not positive on this

in order to change the boot settings in the z230 you need to select /disable  the "Legacy Boot Sources"  enabling "UEFI Boot Sources" in the BIOS or vice versa this togggles the method used to boot the drives (legacy or USEFI) and unless your OS requires legacy you should leave theis option at factory (UEFI) defaults

[grazzie1]

My Bios has Legacy Support enabled, Fastboot is disabled, and Secureboot is disabled.  I have all UEFI Boot Sources disabled. And you're saying this still doesn't disable UEFI? My Lenovo has a combo UEFI and Legacy BIOS where I have the UEFI  disabled and the POST is quick and clean. This z230 POST is sloppy. This is how I configured my boot order in attempting to get rid this double boot

+EUFI Boot Sources : DISABLED

-Legacy Boot Sources

       -Hard Drive

              -Sata0

              -USB Hard Drive : DISABLED

       -ATAPI CD/DVD Drive : DISABLED

       -NetworkController : DISABLED
       -USB Floppy/CD : DISABLED

Does anyone know if I installed Win 7 x64 on a GPT partions and enabled UEFI and disabled Legacy, would I still see the double boot/hiccup?

Thanks.

UPDATE JUNE 5, 2019:  I attempted to install Windows 7 Pro x64 with UEFI enabled (Secure Boot disabled) which did not work on the Z230.  I was able to boot from a UEFI USB Flash Drive but continued to get a boot\bcd error (0xc000000d) because it couldn't see the HDD to install the OS to even though it was listed (and enabled) in the UEFI boot order. However, the HDD, wasn't showing in the UEFI boot order as Sata0 like it should and it wasn't showing in the Boot Options menu as a UEFI device.  I WAS able to install onto a GPT disk but only from the Legacy Bios but it didn't provide a faster/smoother POST. So I reverted back to Legacy /MBR. Even with a SSD, the POST is identical as mentioned in my original complaint.