# Cannot access POST screen and BIOS
**URL:** https://community.amperecomputing.com/t/cannot-access-post-screen-and-bios/1080
**Category:** General Discussion
**Created:** [January 22, 2025, 2:01am UTC](https://community.amperecomputing.com/t/cannot-access-post-screen-and-bios/1080 "2025-01-22T02:01:49Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Mark](https://community.amperecomputing.com/u/Mark)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2025, 2:01am UTC](https://community.amperecomputing.com/t/cannot-access-post-screen-and-bios/1080/1 "2025-01-22T02:01:49Z")
Hello Ampere Development Community,
After we procured all the hardware peripherals to set up the Mt Collins server, we encountered some issues.
After connecting the BMC cable to a router, we managed to access BMC WebUI, but we were unable to get to the next step.
The VGA shows the IP address of the rack server when the server is turned off, but there is no VGA output when the server is turned on.
Now this is the main problem: According to the manual, we should be able to see the POST screen after starting the system to enter the BIOS. However, we could not see the POST screen at all. We tried hard restarting the system, removing NVMe, and plugging in the bootable thumb drive, all to no avail.
We cannot see anything from the VGA screen. We tried different operations through BMC, but we couldn’t get it to show a POST screen.
What should we do?
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### Author:  [@dneary](https://community.amperecomputing.com/u/dneary)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2025, 11:30pm UTC](https://community.amperecomputing.com/t/cannot-access-post-screen-and-bios/1080/2 "2025-01-24T23:30:57Z")
Hi Mark!
I’m not sure what the answer to your question is, but hopefully @bexcran or @vikingforties can help. Is this the same issue that @dohertyctl was seeing in [New issue with Asrock Rack ALTRAD8UD-1L2T with Q64-22](https://community.amperecomputing.com/t/new-issue-with-asrock-rack-altrad8ud-1l2t-with-q64-22/1070) ?
Dave.
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### Author:  [@bexcran](https://community.amperecomputing.com/u/bexcran)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2025, 8:41pm UTC](https://community.amperecomputing.com/t/cannot-access-post-screen-and-bios/1080/3 "2025-01-28T20:41:59Z")
Hi @Mark.
> The VGA shows the IP address of the rack server when the server is turned off
I don’t understand how there can be any VGA output when the server is off?
How is the VGA connected: are you looking at the output from the BMC web page, or do you have a monitor attached to the VGA port on the system?
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### Author:  [@Mark](https://community.amperecomputing.com/u/Mark)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2025, 12:37am UTC](https://community.amperecomputing.com/t/cannot-access-post-screen-and-bios/1080/4 "2025-01-29T00:37:33Z")
Hi Rebecca,
I was originally working with VGA but now I am just working off of BMC web page because I couldn’t get the VGA to work. I doubt it would be a firmware issue so I’m trying to upgrade the firmware first.
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### Author:  [@Mark](https://community.amperecomputing.com/u/Mark)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2025, 12:43am UTC](https://community.amperecomputing.com/t/cannot-access-post-screen-and-bios/1080/5 "2025-01-29T00:43:54Z")
While updating the firmware, I accidentally upgraded SCP firmware first. I later realized that it said I should do “MtCollinsBmc… .hmc” first. Would this cause problems down the road? I selected separate images instead of “Both Images” when I did it.
Afterwards, I installed the MtCollinsBmc… .hmc, altra\_scp\_signed… .hmc, and collins\_aptiov… .hmc in order
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### Author:  [@bexcran](https://community.amperecomputing.com/u/bexcran)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2025, 4:04pm UTC](https://community.amperecomputing.com/t/cannot-access-post-screen-and-bios/1080/6 "2025-01-30T16:04:50Z")
I don’t think upgrading the SCP firmware before the BMC would cause a problem.
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### Author:  [@Mark](https://community.amperecomputing.com/u/Mark)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2025, 1:04am UTC](https://community.amperecomputing.com/t/cannot-access-post-screen-and-bios/1080/7 "2025-01-31T01:04:30Z")
Okay I updated all the firmware but still I cannot see anything when I launch h5viewer from BMC. It keeps saying “No Signal.” I tried completely powering it off and back on to try cold reboot but to no avail as it doesn’t display anything. How should I fix this?
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### Author:  [@Mark](https://community.amperecomputing.com/u/Mark)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2025, 1:10am UTC](https://community.amperecomputing.com/t/cannot-access-post-screen-and-bios/1080/8 "2025-01-31T01:10:17Z")
To give more context, this is what shows up in BMC
Firmware Information
0.45.3
Dec 27 2023
Image 1
SCP Versino
2.10.20230126
BIOS version
0ACOD014
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### Author:  [@bexcran](https://community.amperecomputing.com/u/bexcran)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2025, 7:00pm UTC](https://community.amperecomputing.com/t/cannot-access-post-screen-and-bios/1080/9 "2025-01-31T19:00:00Z")
Do you see any log messages or POST codes indicating the boot progress?
Can you connect the SOL (Serial Over LAN) console to see what it’s reporting?
I’m not sure about that system, but some have a few consoles accessible by running:
ipmitool -I lanplus -U admin -P admin -H \ sol activate instance=1
Then with instance=2, instance=3. I’m not sure of the exact order, but one instance will be the SCP, one the ATF and another the host.
That should hopefully let you see where things are stopping before VGA is initialized.
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### Author:  [@Mark](https://community.amperecomputing.com/u/Mark)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2025, 12:16am UTC](https://community.amperecomputing.com/t/cannot-access-post-screen-and-bios/1080/10 "2025-02-01T00:16:37Z")
The issue is I can’t even open the terminal…it just says “no signal” outright and not sure which button I should press to see the terminal.
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### Author:  [@bexcran](https://community.amperecomputing.com/u/bexcran)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2025, 2:42pm UTC](https://community.amperecomputing.com/t/cannot-access-post-screen-and-bios/1080/11 "2025-02-02T14:42:00Z")
You would run the ipmitool commands on a different system.
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### Author:  [@Mark](https://community.amperecomputing.com/u/Mark)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2025, 6:17am UTC](https://community.amperecomputing.com/t/cannot-access-post-screen-and-bios/1080/12 "2025-02-03T06:17:31Z")
Is it possible to run IPMI even when POST screen is inaccessible? I thought BMC should be able to open KVM and I can use terminal from there, but it seems like terminal is just off signal
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### Author:  [@bexcran](https://community.amperecomputing.com/u/bexcran)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2025, 5:47pm UTC](https://community.amperecomputing.com/t/cannot-access-post-screen-and-bios/1080/13 "2025-02-04T17:47:13Z")
Yes, since the BMC runs on a separate processor, as long as _it_ has booted you can run ipmi commands regardless of the state of the main processor.
It takes a couple of minutes for the VGA to be initialized and show any output, during which time lots of messages are printed to the various serial consoles. For example the SMpro and PMpro processors boot first, and then power on the main ARMv8-A processor. That then runs through DRAM initialization and training before starting the UEFI firmware.
The UEFI firmware does work including PCIe initialization and enumeration at which point the VGA port gets initialized and the monitor/KVM starts showing information.
If you connect to the SOL ports, you can see all that going on before the VGA is activated.