HP Elitebook 845 G7 boot issues and 'black screen of death'

[Selvarin]

Here's the issue.

We're unable to PXE boot in our current environment. (Not our fault, a 3rd party overlord began blocking PXE broadcasts.) In the meantime we were trying to image via boot disk but whenever a USB DVD drive is connected to the USB ports on either notebook or USB-C docking station and the system restarts...

• Screen stays black while the keyboard stays lit
• DVD drive starts whirring, etc., then winds back down
• Notebook starts revving up and acting like it does something for about an hour and then...

BIO settings have been checked and adjusted, etc. but we're not seeing an obvious cause. Also, I noticed if we attach any USB DVD drive while system is in BIOS it freezes the screen and we have to shut it down. Wanted to chalk it up to maybe a defective motherboard but it's been tested on a 2nd notebook of the same make/model. Same issue. Any ideas?

[WAWood]

@Selvarin 

Given the date of your post, I would have expected someone to respond to it before this -- but since that has not happened, I will take a shot at it ...

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you are basically stuck with the same issue as many others with an HP laptop that will attempt to boot from anything connected to a USB port that looks to the PC like a "drive".  IF there was a simple way around this, you and I would both have the solution as my HP laptop has the same issue.