Dell 745: Strange Numbers Appear in BIOS Splash Screen

[asciiman]

Hello-
Dell 745 Optiplex MT with Dell BIOS 2.6.6
This is a pre-UEFI BIOS so it is running as an MBR boot.

The BIOS recently started showing an alpha-numeric message in the upper right quadrant of the Dell BIOS splash screen:

CN0HR3301374075E02TU

I have looked high and low and cannot identify what this message pertains to.
Can anyone shed some light on this for me?

Thanks for any assistance!
Allen

 

[asciiman]

OK I have managed to learn what these numbers represent...
They are the designation numbers of the Dell motherboard and serial number:
CN-0HR330-13740-75E-02TU
What I still do not understand is WHY the numbers suddenly started to appear in the boot splash screen?

At boot the solid string (no dashes) appears in the BIOS splash and at the end of the string is what appears to be a unicode symbol of some kind (looks like unicode 2625 or maybe unicode 263F).

I realize this machine is ancient, but I refurbed it myself in recent years and it has always been a good test bed for Linux distros.
Hoping there are some experienced Dell techs nearby who might be able to explain the change in behavior.

Sending out my message in a bottle, lol...