Z420 Workstation won't open after BIOS update

[Eugen88]

Good day to all,

I updated my BIOS to the version 3.92A within Windows 10, then my Z420 rebooted. After reboot I disable Legacy support  and I enable  Secured Boot , then my computer shuts down.

When I press the Power button again, the fans starts, but It began to beep in 3 rows by 5 times and the power button flashes in red. After this 3 rows of beeping, it stops beeping and continues to flash in red and did not Start.

What could be the problem. How can I fix it?

Thank you!

[BambiBoomZ]

Eugen88,

To be clear, are you able to access BIOS in any way?

If not, then the first action, is to clear CMOS, which can revert the BIOS to the last successful version.

Using the Computer Setup (F10) Utility to Reset CMOS.  See pages 160 and 161 this document:

http://h20628.www2.hp.com/km-ext/kmcsdirect/emr_na-c03424977-1.pdf

If you are successful in reverting to the previous BIOS, I would 1. strongly  advise the first action is disabling Secure Boot and 2. even more strongly advise trying 3.92 again.  > Use 3.91.

Secure Boot: I expect that Secure Boot may be objecting to certain older hardware firmware, for example a GPU  that is older than the system and therefore predates it's profiles.

If clearing CMOS does not restore the system to working, see the instructions to use the Crisis Recovery Jumper method described below.

I sympathize completely with your situation as I have had a two month and expensive confrontation with BIOS v 3.92a in a z620.  Follows is the description of the events, written for evaluation by HP:

Issue: Apparent Performance degradation of BIOS v 3.92 / Inability to revert BIOS to v 3.91

Sequence of events:

1.    The BIOS of Z620_2 (one of five zX20 workstations) running the above configuration, was updated from v 3.91 to 3.92 using the 3.91.exe. This was run within Windows using the same procedure as has been successful fro at least 10 BIOS updates.

2.    The system display went dark, the system paused and then began to ramp fan speeds to maximum.

3.    Cold shutdown

4.    The system would not boot to BIOS, display an error message, nor restart to Windows.

5.    A corrupted BIOS was determined.

6.    Consulting available manuals and the system board diagram, no procedure was obtained.  There was no mention of the Crisis Recovery Jumper in the manual, nor was it notated the system Board Diagram. Later it was discovered that the Crisis Recovery Jumper was mentioned, but only in the z820 section of the Servivce manual, but with no instructions on use.
    a.    If indeed, BIOS v 3.92 produces a performance loss, that should be notated, with the proviso that it at the users’ risk
    b.    The omission of readily accessible description omission of the presence and use of the Crisis Recovery Jumper is more than simply inconvenient.

7.    A replacement motherboard was obtained, successfully updated to BIOS 3.92A, and components reinstalled.

8.    Testing, using Passmark Performance Test 9 reveal an unacceptable reduction in performance: CPU: 17178 > 16290, 2D: 852> 549 , and 3D: 9012 > 7746.

9.    A 2nd replacement motherboard was obtained, but with the same benchmark results.

10.    A post on the HP Support Forum revealed the presence and procedure for use of the Crisis Recovery Jumper.

11.    The  Crisis Recovery Jumper procedure successfully recovered MB_1 to running on v3.92

12.    Given the severe performance penalty proven when the only variable was the BIOS version, 5 attempts were made to revert the BIOS version to 3.91. This included Windows Safe mode and DOS versions, internal and by specially formatted and Partitioned USB and in Safe Mode.

13.    Purchased and tested a GTX 1070 8GB for testing. This produced below average results, especially poor in 2D of 697. The top mark for a GTX 1070 in a  z420 is 811.

14.    Z620_2 was reconfigured to: Xeon E5-1607 v2 / 1X 4GB / Geforce GS7100 / Seagate Baracuda 500GB/ single 1920 X 1080 monitor (HP 2711x) > running a clean install of HP OEM Windows and no applications. Four more attempts both windows and DOS, internal and USB, to revert the BIOS to 3.91 failed.

15.    Consulting the technicians that service a number of local NASA and aerospace firms’ PC’s did not reveal a successful reversion technique.

16.    The internal component were transferred to z420_3, running BIOS v3.91 such that 420_3 in this configuration replicated z620_2 as nearly as possible with the only notable exception being that z420_3 runs on BIOS 3.91.


HP z420_3 (2014) (Rev 4) > Xeon E5-1680 v2 (8-core@ 4.3GHz)  / z420 Liquid Cooling / 64GB DDR3-1866 ECC Reg / Quadro P2000 5GB / HP Z Turbo Drive 256GB AHCI + Intel 730 480GB + HGST 7K6000 4TB / 825W PSU /> Windows 7 Prof.’l 64-bit  > 2X Dell Ultrasharp U2715H  (2560 X 1440) / Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 USB interface
[ Passmark Rating = 6227 / CPU rating = 17006 / 2D = 826 / 3D= 8877 / Mem = 3025 / Disk = 14577 /  Single Thread Mark = 2373  [5.28.18]

This is curently the highest-rated z420 in the Passmark baselines.

17.    Notice the similarity to the results of z620_2 running on v 3.91

18.    At present, z620_2 is in the last, minimal configuration listed and therefore out of service.

19.    Conclusions:

    a.    The z620 manual as linked on HP Support does not notate the presence of the Crisis Recovery Jumper nor describe it’s use
    b.    BIOS v.3.92 produces a severe loss in performance
    c.    BIOS v.3.91 may contain un-announced microcode or other configuration preventing reversion to 3.91.

These events represent a loss financially in working time from the distraction, reduced system value, the ongoing (6 weeks) loss of 20% of computing capacity in the office, cost of components, and cost of technical consultation. A further loss will be incurred if z620_2 has to be replaced to replace the lost capacity.  

<<END

_________________________________________________________________________

The good news of this is that if clearing CMOS does not restore the system to the preivous version BIOS, the undocumented Crisis Recovery Jumper should.:

Courtesy of forum friend SDH:

Crisis Recovery Jumper Z620 Z420 Z820_4.16.18

Please note that my experience with this process was somewhat different than his, but the basics are here, and this did save the Z620 I was asked to salvage.  It would not boot into BIOS, and after a delay (with only a black screen showing) all the fans then ramped up to full speed and stayed that way.  Now it is back to normal function.

 
1.    In the ZX20 workstations there is a motherboard header, E15, incompletely documented in the Technical and service manual, which can be used to force load of a BIOS .bin file from a USB drive into the motherboard. The position of this 3-pin jumper is partially documented in the technical manual, but the position for the Z420/Z620 virtually identical motherboards is the same as its position on the Z820 motherboard.  The Z220 SFF and CMT motherboards have two different positions, which are documented in the manual.  There is a big difference between a restart and a cold boot (from power fully off).  You must follow the instructions below exactly:
 
2.   Power off the workstation and unplug the power cord.
 
3.  CORRECTED:  Change the jumper position from bridging pins 2-3 (the default condition) to bridging pins 1-2 (the Crisis Recovery position). In the Z420/Z620/Z820 the E15 motherboard header is between the bottom PCI white connector and the next up PCIe black connector.  Pin 1 is the far left (towards the workstation's backplane).

4.  Have a non-NTFS formatted small USB2 drive with the target BIOS .bin file on it, at the top level of the drive, and plug that in to the TOP FRONT USB2 port of the workstation. You could also use a rear USB2 port.  Do not use a USB3 port.  For the current 4/18 BIOS for the Z420/Z620 version 1 and 2 workstations the BIOS is 3.92, and the .bin file you would have on the thumb drive should be named J61_0392.bin.  This can be harvested from the BIOS SoftPaq by auto-unpacking it and going into the SWSetup folder that creates on the root level of C drive, and then going into the source SP84163 folder that is created in SWSetup, and go into the DOS folder that is in there, and copy out that .bin file.  You can turn off hiding of extensions of known file type in the Folder view tab control panel to make this easier to find (I keep that setting unchecked always).

5.   Plug in power cord, power up, and wait.... you should see it blink the USB stick on, and then 7 red lights/beeps from the workstation. NOW wait.... the workstation will auto-reboot, DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING!

6.    It will restart and you will get blinking USB Stick, and red lights flashing (but this time 😎 and then a few seconds later the workstation's lights will go blue and the BIOS will come on. DONT TOUCH YET!

7.   The workstation will restart again, and the BIOS screen will start, NOW PULL THE USB STICK OUT, and you will see BIOS firmware flash itself.
 
8.   The workstation will now auto-restart, and flash 9 times and then fully auto-shut itself off.

9.    Unplug the power cord, and don’t forget to set the recovery jumper back to its default position (bridging pins 2-3).  That is, shift it back to the far right on the pins, where you found it before starting the process.

10.  Plug back in the power cord, power up, and restore any settings you had in the BIOS, and BIOS should be back to working properly.

Again, the number of beeps likely varies with the particular problem(s) that this advanced firmware mechanism encounters, as it did in my case.  This is a last ditch effort procedure so I had no hesitation to keep experimenting until I succeeded.

________________________________________

The Crisis Recovery Jumper teechnique as described by SDH worked on the first try for me.  I would mention that this was done after reading more about the recovery jumper use and, accordingly, I used a 1GB partition formatted as FAT32 on a USB 2.0 flash drive and the small partition and format does appear to make a difference to the successful use. If not successful immediately, keep trying and watch in particular the timing of removing the USB drive.

Let us know what happens.

BambiBoomZ

[Eugen88]

I have posted this questions two times. I don't know why.

Thank you for your answer.

I reseted my cmos battery by pressing the button near, and now it works.