HP z840 workstation won't post and emits 6 beeps and red light flashes.

[drdude81]

This happened when I wanted to customize the BIOS settings. Specifically, the last change after which it didn't show screen and emitted 6 beeps is changing the PCI settings to "not download ROM". I did this because I had an SFP+ card that is always trying to boot from PXE and I wanted it to stop so I can boot my system.

Now, I can't even see a screen, bios post or anything, just the beeps. I tried resetting the CMOS with the button (reseating the graphics card, unplugging power cord, pressing for 5 sec, and replugging). Also, I have a password on the BIOS, would that affect any recovery procedure?

Just for the record, this post (bottom of post for z440/z640/z840 seems to *somewhat work*. That is, it boots, I see it is loading the BIOS from the USB (USB with light I can see it starting to flash at different speeds), and the workstation shuts down and turns ON on its own as described. HOWEVER, I didn't see any bios loaded on the screen, so now I don't know what is the state, and how I should proceed from here on.

PLEASE help, this is urgent matter as this is my main server that runs quiet a bit of services including backups, gitlab container, and other things.

Thanks in advance!

[drdude81]

I managed to make it work. After doing the procedure, now the BIOS version is 2.58.

BUT

there is another problem, not sure what I should do now regarding post error message "164-Memory Size Changed". It only allows me to press ENTER and it reboots the same way. It also doesn't allow me to enter the BIOS settings upon pressing ESC.

Any help very appreciated. All the best.

[drdude81 · Accepted solution]

Well, that also is done. I just clicked Enter few times and I fixed the time in the BIOS as well.

I hope this helps save some one the hassle and time lost (2 days of no services!).