can't get into bios on HP ProDesk 400 G3 MT

[BIGBEAR1]

Hi there. My hard drive packed in. HP have delivered a replacement hard drive under warranty, along with the operating system DVD for windows 10 pro. I have fittted the new drive. All good so far. What i can't do is install the operating system onto the new drive. My understanding is that i need to get into the BIOS to change the boot order so it will look for my DVD drive. I cannot get into BIOS to do this. I have tried holding down various keys during power on, so F10,F8,esc,F12,F2. Nothing works. I have even created an ISO on a flash drive in the vain hope that is already set in a sequence to load from. No joy there either. So it appears i am stuck. Any advice please on how i can solve this? Thank You.

[mdklassen]

Assuming that your keyboard is working correctly, I have two suggestions:

1.  The new disk-drive is "blank", which means "not bootable". The boot-order set in the BIOS should include the DVD device as one of the "bootable" devices.  Thus, the motherboard will try each of the listed devices, in turn, to try to boot from each. So, it should eventually "find" that the DVD device contains bootable media, and should boot from it.

2. Turn the computer off. Disconnect the AC power. Reconnect the AC power.  Hold down one keyboard key. While holding it down, turn the computer on.  Eventually, this "stuck" key should cause the computer to show "keyboard error -- press the <blah> key to enter BIOS SETUP".

[BIGBEAR1]

Thank You for taking the trouble to reply. V M appreciated. I have had to raise a new case with HP, as i got different symptoms after i made this post. The computer now just gives a single beep when i power on, shuts itself down, restarts , beeps again, and repeats the cycle. The only way i can stop this happening is disconnecting the power supply,  as pressing and holding the power on/off button does not respond. I have two weeks left on my warranty, so hopefully enough time for HP to help me fix it, or return it to them to fix.

[mdklassen]

> I have two weeks left on my warranty, so hopefully enough time for HP to help me fix it, or return it to them to fix.

That's about the only "good news" in this topic.

Consider buying an "extended warranty", while the current warranty is still valid, to cover 2 or 3 more years.

[BIGBEAR1]

Professor, Thank You, extending the warranty is a good shout, had not considered that. I will look into the pricing.

[BIGBEAR1]

Professor. Thought i would give an update. HP tech support called me. I had to disconnect all USB canles, network cable and power cord. Then I had to remove the new hard drive from the PC, the 2 X 16GB RAM, and the NVIDIA GeForce GT 710 graphics card. I then had to remove the CMOS battery. I then had to depress the power on button for 20 seconds. I think all of this was to remove any latent energy still active. I then fitted the COMS battery, hard drive, the RAM and lastly the graphics card. I switched the PC on. F10 took be into BIOS where i was able to check that the DVD was listed in the boot up option. I inserted the Windows 10 pro operating system in the DVD drive, slected continue from BIOS and hey presto, Windows 10 Pro started installing. 

Why it got in such a pickle i don't know. there may have been some static electricity produced when i fitted the new hard drive. PC is as good as new and BTW it's £28 to extend the warranty which i will do.  Thanks, Bear.

[DesertSweeper]

I have the same problem - this is a truly horrible computer and part of the decline of this once great company. I tried your sequence and after re-assembling got a screen saying the Real Time Clock had lost it's information and I should reset the time inside windows. The standard HP F10 key does nothing. I have actually come to believe that this unit is shipping without a customisable BIOS. Disaster.

[DesertSweeper]

For those who face this problem I was finally able to invoke the BIOS Settings by using an old PS/2 type of keyboard. It was simply not possible with a USB keyboard, including the brand-new HP unit that came with the computer. The USB keyboards I tried all worked fine and were able to invoke the test menu but not the BIOS Settings menu. By random luck I tried an old keyboard when I noticed the ProDesk still has that connector. It worked.

[Rocker4Hire]

Well, I can't speak to the solutions above for the HP ProDesk 400 G3 MT, but I'm having the same issue with the HP ProDesk 400 G5 MT. Our ProDesks came with Windows 10 preinstalled, HP dual DisplayPort graphics cards, and solid state drives. Getting into the BIOS was like pulling teeth. Solutions that did not work: pressing the Escape key, F10 key, F9 key (boot option), unplugging the power, pressing the CMOS reset button. What finally worked was removing the HP graphics card and the CMOS reset button but it took several tries with the F10 key or ESC key before it worked. Now this is just to get into the BIOS.

Under the advanced tab of the BIOS, you have to create a boot delay in order to get to the F9 boot options during startup.

What Mdklassen said earlier about the PC eventually finding the DVD and booting doesn't work with the newer BIOS and solid state drives of the HP ProDesk 400 G5. The boot process is lightning fast. By default the "Boot Delay" is set to "Zero." Change that to 10-15 seconds temporarily until you get the OS installed then you can go back and change it later.  I unchecked all boot device options EXCEPT the CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive option.  Save changes and exit. This gives you enough time to press the F9 key to get into the Boot Setup menu during the startup process. Same as earlier, after the OS install, go back and recheck the boot devices that were disabled earlier.

Mdklassen, holding down any key during the boot process didn't work for me either...maybe the newer BIOS doesn't allow it or recognize it.

DesertSweeper, the HP DeskPro 400 G5 doesn't have ANY PS/2 ports so I didn't have that option, lol. Yes, the BIOS "is" customizable once you're able to actually get into it, lol.

P.S.: [Bear with me here--I know this is a side issue]. The reason I had to wipe off HP's preinstalled WIndow 10 Pro...their version came with a trial version of Microsoft Office 365 that wreaked havoc on the Windows Registry.  We have volume licensing for Windows 10 Pro and Office 2016. Removing Office 365, or leaving it installed, created major conflicts with Office 2016 in the Windows Registry. At first glance Outlook 2016 seems to work fine. But the "Signatures" feature and "Stationary and Fonts" settings are disabled for all users including the Administrator accounts. In other words, Windows 10 thinks there are two instances of Office running even after removing the trial version of Office 365--creating a conflict in the Windows Registry.

 Just Google stationary and fonts with Office 365 trial and Office 2016 and you'll find a bunch of feasable solutions that don't work. I've tried everything: uninstalling both and reinstalling the volume licensed Office 2016, using an app for editing Windows Registry to remove only the Office 365 traces, and creating registry backups and restores.

This may not be the best solution, but reinstalling the OS from the ground up was fairly fast on the HP ProDesk 400 G5's SSD--about 15-20 minutes. Better than the 1-2 hours I spent on the first workstation that had this problem.