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The installed BIOS was released in 2011, so it isn't all that old. But I understand that it doesn't take much of a difference to cause total incompatibility. I'll try the fix you posted and report back with an update.  But that will be quite a few hours from now, after I get off work and get my nap. Definitely need a nap before trying to sort out a computer problem.

At least I do already have an alternate use for the computer if I can't get OPNsense to install. But then I'll have to wait until I can get another box before trying again to install OPNsense.

The exact problem is that the box, an old HP DC5750, does not boot from the USB stick with the x86-64 VGA image. Other relevant facts;

1) The computer will boot from USB. I have installed three different Linux distros with the same USB stick in the same port.

2) BIOS knows the stick is there. It show up in the BIOS screen with the correct manufacturer and other details.

3) The image is correct. I can boot from the stick on my laptop.

4) The CPU is an Athlon 64 X2 running at 3.0 Ghz and I have 4 Gb of RAM installed.

5) The USB is before the HD in the boot order. But even when I manually select the USB it boots from the HD.

6) According to the HP site I have the latest BIOS installed. Since the computer is no longer supported there is no chance of further upgrades.

I bought this box specifically for this purpose. So I hope I can get it to work. But if not, I'll put it to other uses and get something different for the router. Mainly, I'd just like to solve the puzzle so I understand what's going wrong.

Well I think I've diagnosed the problem. OPNsense comes with an EFI bootloader and the box has a BIOS motherboard. Now I'm trying to find a way to resolve this.

First, this is not a problem with the software. But I'm hoping somebody here can help me figure out what's going wrong. I wrote the image to a USB stick as per the instructions in the documentation. The USB stick functions perfectly on this laptop. But when I try to install OPNsense to the box I'm building for it the system will not boot from the USB. This is confusing because the distro on the box now is one I just installed from the same USB stick earlier today. So I know the BIOS can boot from USB. And, like I said above, OPNsense boots up just fine when I plug the stick into this computer.

And now the OS I installed earlier won't boot cleanly either.

When I type "usb" at the GRUB prompt it returns a blank line indicating there are no USB devices connected. I don't know how to fix this at this level. It's also odd that it doesn't show any USB devices but it accepts input from the USB keyboard.

So how do I get the box to recognize the USB stick?