E7 error – Intel DQ35JO motherboard

Intel DQ35JO

This is one of those infuriating motherboards. When I booted it up, all I got was a black screen with a cryptic E7. Apparently, E7 stands for Error 7. I naturally went to Intel’s website to find out what is E7. To my annoyance, it states E7 is “Waiting for user input”. Wow, that’s a great help. What exactly am I suppose to input. JEEZ…..

Here’s the problem. I can post to BIOS. I can adjust all the settings. I can see my hard drive. But when I save and exit, the hard drive refuses to boot and flags me E7.

I know for a fact it is not my hard disk. It has Linux loaded in it and I can boot it with another motherboard. So, something must be going on with this Intel DQ35JO board. You will encounter this E7 when you install or replace a hard drive. It took me a good 1/2 day to solve this issue. Here are the steps in order.

Configuring the motherboard

Only do this when there’s no power applied to the motherboard. Switch OFF the psu and pull out the mains cable. Otherwise, the motherboard can be damaged.

At the BIOS Jumper, set the TAB for Configure (Jump 2-3). Power up the psu. It will automatically boot to the BIOS. You should be able to see your hard drive listed. If not, then you hard drive is dead.

With all the necessary adjustments made, press F10 for Save and Exit. The motherboard will then tell you to turn off the power and reset the Jumper for Normal (Jump 1-2).

Having done that, boot up the motherboard again and press F2 when the splash screen comes on. The BIOS Setting Menu will appear. Go through it again, especially where your hard drive is to make sure it’s listed and the boot sequence is correct. F10 to Save and Exit.

And you would think everything’s fine. The motherboard will power-up and boot your hard drive. Well, after numerous attempts, E7 still appeared.

E7 SOLVED

This went on for 1/2 day until I tried pressing F10 at the splash screen. And all of a sudden, a Boot Menu appeared. And there was my dvd and hard drive. Select the drive you wish to boot first with the Up and Down keys, press Enter and away it goes. 

Unbelievable. You would think a company like Intel would have the presence of mind to display a F10 for Boot Menu in the splash screen. Nope, all it has is a F2 for BIOS Setting. How in the hell are users going to know that the booting is manual. All other motherboards will automatically boot to whatever is set in the BIOS. That’s what the BIOS is for. To make matter worse, there is no mention of this in their manual. All it says is E7 = Waiting for user input. Is this gross stupidity or what. 

Once I figured this out, my hard drive booted up flawlessly every time. To recap, the boot sequence in the BIOS is useless. You need to press F10 at the splash screen to access the boot menu. If you don’t do this, you’ll get the dreaded E7.When my hard drive booted up to Bodhi Linux, it ran perfectly. You can see I have a Core2Duo 2.80GHz processor installed and there are 2GB of memory. I have not installed a PCI-e graphics card or a PCI sound card yet. Just sorting this E7 nonsense is trying enough.

Why Manual Boot

This F10 manual boot business is quite unusual. Having given it some thought, it does have some benefits. Suppose you have three hard drives, one for Windows XP, the other for Windows 7 and the third one for Windows 10. With a manual boot, you can select any one of the Windows to boot with. For someone like myself, that’s useful. I don’t have to replace a hard drive every time I decide to use another OS.