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HP Recommended

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Business-PCs-Workstations-and-Point-of-Sale-Systems/Z620-BIOS-Update-F...

 

I have the identical issue to the post above after doing the same update through Windows 10. In my case my system froze without any progress indication.

 

Won't go into crisis recovery mode. Fans ramp up to full. Pulled out ALL additional CPUs, RAM bar one stick, GPU, all USB devices except the recovery stick. USB stick doesn't light up at all.

 

Pulling all RAM triggers error code otherwise just a blue light and full fan speed.

 

Ordered a new board but preferable if I could get this one working!

 

13 REPLIES 13
HP Recommended

this question/post has been asked and replied to more time than i can count

 

please use this sites "SEARCH" function, and use "crisis recovery jumper SDH" as keywords

 

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Business-PCs-Workstations-and-Point-of-Sale-Systems/Crisis-Recovery-Ju...

HP Recommended

Well you see, yes the idea of how to reflash the BIOS has been answered and yes I did search before posting hence the reason i am posting.

 

However, there is NO ANSWER to the fact that even with the jumper in the correct position my computer still continues to spin the fans and refuse to flash red lights or beep at me as it should as per the given instructions.

 

So, any other helpful ideas for me? I'm going to assume the flashing process also killed the ROM chip that would assist with recovery when I powered off the computer.

HP Recommended

Believe me.... we feel your pain.  I have a favor to ask.... did you try your BIOS flash from W10, and did you use the program HP provides to upgrade the BIOS from within the operating system.  Or, did you use my recommended method of updating flash from within BIOS?

 

There are a few tips you may not know.  First, you need to really get CMOS down to its most primative settings.  The methods we have described.... everything detached, battery out, pushing the CMOS button for 30 seconds, pushing the front power button and holding for 30 seconds, wait 2 hours, do it over, all while bridging all 3 of the power blades with your fingers multiple times.  Bleeding off any power in the capacitors.  Battery back in and press/hold CMOS button one more time for 30 seconds.  I'm always using PS2 keyboard and mouse by this stage of the disaster.

 

Primitive is the key.  I was stuck in a strange BIOS boot failure a few months ago..... went paleo and put in only a single 4GB stick in the first RAM socket, put in a PCI (not PCIe) video card that I've posted about here in the past, and used an old W7 DVD as the boot device (I already knew the disc could be booted into).  Finally got BIOS to bootstrap itself to the point I could clean flash the BIOS from a USB stick using my usual method (which you need to read up on) and reloaded BIOS from within BIOS.

 

My feeling is that a part of BIOS (the more modern parts) has become corrupted but some old primitive parts are still alive, and that was enough to get me to a clean BIOS re-install.  That Z420 v2 souped up workstation has been running perfectly ever since.

 

This is a black art...... and sometimes only green cash will fix it.  Used eBay v2 motherboards are my last resort, but they actually are very cheap if you value your time at over about $5.00 USD/hour.  I surely can say I don't do it because I like the challenge....

HP Recommended

Hello SDH, and thanks for your reply!

 

Just to answer your questions here's what I've done so far.

- Downloaded and installed the BIOS via HP Softpaq Dowload Manager - No progress windows at all for some reason.

- System froze, so powered it off.

- Did the usual, clear CMOS, removing battery, draining capacitors.

- Found out about this "Crisis recovery jumper"

- Switched the jumper - Did nothing

- Stripped out ALL peripherals, CPU 2 and and left it with the bare minimum of the USB with the boot rom. - Still blue light, high speed fans.

- Then tried an original stick of 1 or 2GB RAM that came with the machine as I had upgraded it to 64GB - Still blue light, high speed fans.

- Pulled out all RAM - Red light and beeps. - So not completely brain dead?

- Swapped around CPUs - Still blue light, high speed fans.

- Left it for a few days - Tried again today... - Still blue light, high speed fans and I left it a good half hour to see if it would suddenly reboot and do something

 

I've tried shorting all three pins as well, pulling the password protect jumper and swapping it. Nout.

 

In 14 years in the industry, and the many years as a kid growing up I've never seen such a pain in the bottom BIOS to recover and I've broken a few! Give me an Award BIOS off the 90s any day of the week.

 

I ordered a new board last week but it won't be here from the US (I'm in Canada) for a few more weeks. Apparently I can get my goods from China quicker. I'm not all that fussed because one of the RAM slots has a training issue occasionally anyway and that never seems to be consistent either as to which slot it's gonna be depending on the weather outside. I just want a working PC for now until it comes!

HP Recommended

Well, it was not for lack of trying.

 

Take home for all readers.  Spend the time to learn how to update BIOS from within BIOS.  I will never ever take the shortcut way ever again.

 

Having said that, did you try the PCI video card trick?  Or, ready to move on to a new used v2 motherboard?  Let me know if you need any help on that.

HP Recommended

It's certainly the approach I will be taking when this new board arrives for sure! Never had the Windows based software fail me previously so I put some trust in it!

 

Has something changed in Windows 10? I have done previous BIOS upgrades before without any hiccups!

 

I know these boards don't really like Windows 10 as the Intel firmware seems to have issues with sleep/hibernate and shutdown if fast boot is enabled (totally pointless with a SATA SSD).

 

I haven't got an old PCI card laying around sadly. Board swap should be easy enough to do, but thanks for the offer! I did try completely headless to see if that would trigger something... nope.

HP Recommended

Training errors.... clean your ram contacts very well with high strength IPA, or even better Everclear.  Clean every stick before they go into the new motherboard.  I also clean the slots with compressed air from the cans/small tube.  Some servers even have plastic blanks to keep dust out of open sockets.

 

You're lucky.... one of my Canucklehead friends can't come visit from BC because they may not let him back up.  Pretty soon they'll cut off packages too.

HP Recommended

I've posted on how to turn off Hibernate on a system level, via an elevated CMD prompt command.  Works on W7 and W10 equally well, and on W10 deactivates Fast Boot automatically.  I saved our critical medical monitor calibration software that way and we're up and running on W10 with that now.  We can't run W7 anymore for security reasons.

HP Recommended

Ironically I moved to BC middle of last year from the UK (had the Z620 shipped!). It's a fun situation here at the moment as we've not had many cases at all but have certainly been advised to not travel aboard, and now they've shut the boarders it a PITA. Everyone was pretty chilled out until today and now it's gone mad.

 

Dunno what did the trick on the training errors to be honest, it just eventually stopped and the stick was being recognised.  

 

As soon as I acquired the unit from my employer the first thing I did was factory it, upgrade to Windows 10 and then put my SSD in and did a clean Windows 10 1809 install as that was the latest at the time. Did a few BIOS upgrades too so confused why this latest BIOS update bricked it!

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