The Optiplex 3040 is offered in three different configurations. MT, SFF, and MFF. Since the size was not mentioned, the problem is most difficult to pinpoint since all three form factors are of different design.
The troubleshooting description is good except for one aspect, the hard drive.
You can NOT put any known good HDD into any Dell desktop and expect it to boot to the OS because the OS gets tied to the BIOS at POST (Power On Self Test)
Since there are no issues gaining access to the system BIOS and running diagnostics, my suspicion is the BIOS has been changed to LEGACY from UEFI. When set to EFI or UEFI the drive will not boot to the OS if the configuration does not match. The system will make an attempt, then reboot.
I really do not think you have a hardware issue. I suspect it is a BIOS configuration issue. Set the BIOS to LEGACY and use a clean drive to start the computer. It should error upon POST that there is no operating system installed. That is a good sign. At this point you can install a new OS.
The BIOS had indeed been changed from to Legacy, unfortunately putting it back to UEFI didn't seem to help much. Booting to a Win7 DVD or our WDS server resulted in a BSOD. They both got past the two first 'loading files' screens only to meet a BSOD immediately after much like before.
I loaded the 'BIOS Defaults' as well, after manually resetting things to UEFI and was only met with the same BSOD.
I'm not sure what setting I put but one of the manual configurations I had resulted in a 'no bootable devices found' warning, which of course required a reboot and re-change of the BIOS. However, after the 'no bootable devices' warning I checked the system config to make sure it saw the HDD which it did.
On the original motherboard (before the dell rep replaced it) there was an option to reset the BIOS settings to factory defaults. I'm not seeing that on this one - only 'BIOS defaults' which I hope are identical.
I took it out to run a chkdsk on another computer and while that was running I attempted to boot to the Win7 DVD with the troublesome computer. Obviously without a drive to install it to I wouldn't get far, but no matter; I couldn't get into windows at all, just like before. It brought up the two 'Windows is loading files' screens, then just as it showed the windows logo it gave me a BSOD - in the exact same spot as before.
I tried the same with a Ubuntu CD and it gave me a kernel panic.
The chkdsk came back without any errors or bad sectors.
ManyDimensions
1.3K Posts
0
January 18th, 2017 08:00
The Optiplex 3040 is offered in three different configurations. MT, SFF, and MFF. Since the size was not mentioned, the problem is most difficult to pinpoint since all three form factors are of different design.
The troubleshooting description is good except for one aspect, the hard drive.
You can NOT put any known good HDD into any Dell desktop and expect it to boot to the OS because the OS gets tied to the BIOS at POST (Power On Self Test)
Since there are no issues gaining access to the system BIOS and running diagnostics, my suspicion is the BIOS has been changed to LEGACY from UEFI. When set to EFI or UEFI the drive will not boot to the OS if the configuration does not match. The system will make an attempt, then reboot.
I really do not think you have a hardware issue. I suspect it is a BIOS configuration issue. Set the BIOS to LEGACY and use a clean drive to start the computer. It should error upon POST that there is no operating system installed. That is a good sign. At this point you can install a new OS.
nate_hill
1 Rookie
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4 Posts
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January 18th, 2017 11:00
Firstly, my apologies, this is the 3040 MT.
The BIOS had indeed been changed from to Legacy, unfortunately putting it back to UEFI didn't seem to help much. Booting to a Win7 DVD or our WDS server resulted in a BSOD. They both got past the two first 'loading files' screens only to meet a BSOD immediately after much like before.
I loaded the 'BIOS Defaults' as well, after manually resetting things to UEFI and was only met with the same BSOD.
I'm not sure what setting I put but one of the manual configurations I had resulted in a 'no bootable devices found' warning, which of course required a reboot and re-change of the BIOS. However, after the 'no bootable devices' warning I checked the system config to make sure it saw the HDD which it did.
On the original motherboard (before the dell rep replaced it) there was an option to reset the BIOS settings to factory defaults. I'm not seeing that on this one - only 'BIOS defaults' which I hope are identical.
nate_hill
1 Rookie
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4 Posts
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January 18th, 2017 13:00
small update:
I'm pretty sure it's not the hdd.
I took it out to run a chkdsk on another computer and while that was running I attempted to boot to the Win7 DVD with the troublesome computer. Obviously without a drive to install it to I wouldn't get far, but no matter; I couldn't get into windows at all, just like before. It brought up the two 'Windows is loading files' screens, then just as it showed the windows logo it gave me a BSOD - in the exact same spot as before.
I tried the same with a Ubuntu CD and it gave me a kernel panic.
The chkdsk came back without any errors or bad sectors.