[Solved] HP z820 not entering bios, not booting.

[noths]

Hi, I have a z820 workstation I bought used, 2x E5-2650 v2, 8x8Gb DDR3 ECC reg 12800 RAM, Nvidia Quadro K2000, Samsung Evo 870 512Gb as boot drive and 6 Sata Hgst 2Tb Ultrastar configured as Raid 10 at the LSI2308 on board controller. Windows 10 64bit.



The system was running fine for a year now, except sometimes it would not boot if I had external USB drives connected, it would freeze at the HP logo.



Last month it started freezing at the HP logo even without anything connected at the USB ports and it would need to restart 6-7 times before it would boot to Windows 10. If it booted it would run perfectly well for days, so I let it on.

Now it doesn't boot anymore, even if I restart it or hard shut it down, it just hangs at the HP logo, if I press f10 I get a blank screen, if then I press Esc it says "entering startup menu..." and nothing happens.

I disconnected everything (even the boot SSD) but the CPUs and 1 stick of RAM and the graphics card, nothing changed. It does respond to Ctrl-Alt-Del, Esc and F10, F12 but it does not proceed to boot, or enter setup. No red lights, no beep sounds but no Mini OROM display and no boot either.


The only things I haven't tried is to change cpu and reflash the bios with the crisis jumper method and the USB drive containing the bios, described here.
I guess if these don't work I have to buy a new motherboard?

Please, if anyone has any idea, help!

UPDATE : Reflashing the bios using the crisis jumper method that I linked above did the trick.
Thank you all for your help, knowing that the best were here to help me, encouraged me to go on with the risky process.

 

[i386]

What happens when you remove the hba/raid controller?

 

[noths]

It's onboard, so I can't remove it but I removed all the cables and the disks, nothing changed.

 

[Coconuts]

So you've cut it right down to one stick of RAM for troubleshooting in a system with two CPUs?

I hope you removed the other CPU without RAM. Easier to just add another stick if you didn't.

 

[i386]

in a system with two CPUs

Also test both cpus in a "single cpu system" configuration to rule out any cpu related problems

 

[noths]

I tried it with 2 sticks 1 for each cpu, changed sticks still 1 for each cpu, even tried 1 stick for cpu 0 without removing cpu 1, same behavior, it posted till the hp logo, no warnings. I have reset bios pressing the switch, I also removed the battery, it started with fans at max, then settled at normal speed, as usual but refused to get past hp logo and enter setup.
When I find time I 'll remove CPUs and put another one (I have a xeon E5-2670) and now that I mentioned fans, I' ll disconnect all chassis fans and see if I manage something.
Thank you all for your help, if you think anything else, please let me know.

 

[noths]

UPDATE : Reflashing the bios using the crisis jumper method that I linked above did the trick.
Thank you all for your help, knowing that the best were here to help me, encouraged me to go on with the risky process.

 

[Coconuts]

Well done mate. Would have been a shame to lose the 820.