BLACK SCREEN, NO BOOT, NO POST PLEASE HELP

[kdbaseball8]

Good Morning,

I am at wits end with my Z840.  I was attempting to load ubuntu and now have seemed to corrupt the bios.  Now when I power on I get fans but just a black screen.  No troubleshooting seems to be able to rectify this.

A few trouble shooting things that I have already tried.  When I pull the ram and start I get beeps (5 if I remember correctly).  When I pull the Nvidia quadro k4200 and start I get beeps.(6 if I remember correctly).  I went through the BBR process and attempted to flash the BIOS.  Still nothing, no screen although the process looked like it worked.  The USB did light up with 8 beeps.

Is there anything I can do to get something on the screen?  If I could just get somewhere I feel I could recover the computer.  Please help if able.

Thank you

I currently have no hard drive connected.

[itsmyname]

@kdbaseball8 -- it is a good sign that removing the RAM causes the POST (Power On Self Test) to "beep".

Does the fan run at 100% speed, with 100% noise, and then slow down, and get quiet? The POST will do that, to confirm that the fan is working correctly.

Can you create a CD-recordable with something that is "simple" and "bootable", such as from www.memtest.org  and boot from it, while you have just one stick of RAM inserted?

[kdbaseball8]

I could create a USB with memtest86 on it but I am unsure of how I could ensure it boots from it since I cannot get any display on the monitor.

[kdbaseball8]

The fans do run up then run down to the normal level.

[itsmyname · Accepted solution]

@kdbaseball8 -- I am unsure of how I could ensure it boots from it since I cannot get any display on the monitor.

Disconnect the "data" and "power" cables from the disk-drive. Obviously, Windows cannot boot from a non-connected device. Maybe, it will "find" the bootable image on the CD media ???

[kdbaseball8]

Will do.  Thank you for your help.  I have also heard that the bios can have trouble with HDMI cables because of the resolution.  I ordered a DVI to VGA cable in hopes of seeing something.

Appreciate all the help.  Still, trouble shooting hoping to unbrick this board.