z820 starts, no beep, no display, switches off aftre 15 seconds

[Deepak2806]

Specs - HP Z820 workstation : 2x E5 2687W, 8x 4GB (32GB DDR3), 500GB SSD boot disc with CentOS7, NVIDIA QUADRO 4000

problem - powers on, but no beep sound, no display. then turns off after 15 seconds.

workarounds done:

1.  changed CMOS battery to reset,
2.  interchanged all RAM modules,
3.  CPUs removed and re-assembled,
4.  tried booting using USB drive (thouh no display, optimistic that system will recognise),

question- is it possible to update BIOS though no display? is it possible to boot without boot disc to observe system behavior?

some advise will be helpful.

Thanks,

Deepak

[DGroves]

while it is possible to do a bios update without a display, doing so REQUIRES A STABLE WORKING SYSTEM which you obviously do not have.

second, a bios update is not a magical cure all that fixes all issues and should not be used as the first step when having boot issues with a system

in your case, you have a major issue that appears to be hardware not software based which is why a bios update is not recommended at this time

first step is to do a power supply "BIST" check which is covered in the z820 service manual along with other troubleshooting steps

https://support.hp.com/ca-en/product/setup-user-guides/hp-z820-workstation/model/5228610

https://www.manua.ls/hp/z820-workstation/manual

you  need to remove the power supply from the case and plug-in the power cable. If you get a light on the green LED at the rear of the supply at the exhaust fan grill, the power supply is functional.

if the supply passes the test, remove all add in cards except for the video and try a power on, if that fails remove all ram except for the minimum needed to boot a single or dual cpu system

if that fails the motherboard has most likely failed and needs to be replaced

last, using a v2 cpu in a v1 motherboard is not recommended, while some boards would boot and work, they were usually unstable over the long run if your board is a rev 001 or 002 it's a rev 1 board, 003 boards could be either v1/v2 and 004 were all v2

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Business-PCs-Workstations-and-Point-of-Sale-Systems/HP-Z820-Motherboar...

[Brian1965]

Hi Deepak2806,

I had an older Z600 system with the same GPU card and it also exhibited the exact same behaviour for a short period of time. I would suggest you remove the GPU card and check for dust/lint around the fan and heatsink on the GPU card. You'd be surprised how much dust a 13 year old GPU card, (released in 2010), can accumulate over its lifetime. I ended up removing the face-plate that covers the GPU heatsink and removed a ton of lint that was blocking the vanes on the heatsink, and preventing the GPU fan from doing its job. Of course, re-fit the heatsink face-plate after cleaning. It's certainly worth checking . . .