HP Power Assistant Won’t Recognize 8770w Battery

Was too late to stop a forced (?) HP update before it installed some updates and was ready to reboot. One of the updates was the HP Power Assistant, now at version 2.5.0.16. It was previously working ok since I bought this machine as “new in box” last year. 8770w is running Windows 7 Pro SP1. It has all of the Microsoft updates, minus the updates that enable Windows 10 upgrades. All of those are gone. I don’t allow unattended updates on the fly, but this entire update package ran without my permission. More on that later.

Power Assistant doesn’t see the battery and won’t show the machine’s power consumption. Yet the battery is silently charging, and the power profile appears to be controlled instead by the Windows power app in the control panel, which had a hibernation option set (not by me).

Event log is showing an error from the HPPA every 5 seconds or so from the HP CASL. The HP software framework log is also showing constant errors recorded. After searching for clues about CASL framework errors, I found and eye-opener.

In an HP support forum post I found a URL for the readme from HP PA 2.5.0.16 (version on my machine now). I have it loaded now, from HP’s FTP site. It only shows the Elitebooks 8470w and the 8570p. 8770w is not listed. Softpaq no. was sp56988, effective 4/17/12.

But as of this moment, HP’s support page for this 8770w is pointing me to a different readme for PA 2.5.0.16 that shows ALL Elitebooks from the beginning of time (almost) are supported. Same Softpaq no. and same effective date. Only description of what’s changed is “Provides the updated software.” Wow that’s useful.

So I dug into this a little deeper. The readme from the HP support web site is coming from support.hp.com (web server). The contradicting readme is coming from ftp.hp.com (FTP server). I just downloaded a fresh copy of the latest install package from the FTP site and the CRC32’s match (DA7C907). The readme files very definitely don’t match. It appears that HP deliberately added a laundry list of Elitebook model numbers to the web site support web page version of the readme without verifying the incorrect information.

HP’s support web site was also showing the previous versions of the Power Assistant, so I downloaded version 2.1.0.6. readme file at the FTP site also doesn’t show the 8770w as supported. Tried again with version 2.0.6.0. Softpaq no and CRC32 of the file match the bogus v2.5.0.16 distribution package. I downloaded v2.0.5.1 from support.hp.com but the readme again doesn’t show the 8770w as supported. Per the original readme files at ftp.hp.com, the Power Assistant never listed the 8770w as a supported model.

Tracing back through the Softpaq numbers for the Power Assistant, I found two versions of v2.0.6.0. support.hp.com appears to be very disorganized, and is pointing customers to the wrong files, with every readme file modified to add all Elitebook models, whether the application supports them or not. And that’s after I used my product number and serial number to pick out the correct (?) updates. The HP Support Assistant was worse, since it appears HP may have set the program to silently override whatever the customer’s options were (I had everything on manual update, only), and just force the HP updated programs to install without notice.

Does anyone have any idea what is the correct version of the Power Assistant in an original image for an Elitebook 8770w?

 

Do you have the original install discs? If so, a version that should work for you should be available to you on the drivers disc.

Concerning software for the 8740w, I have seen similar chaos among hp.com, HP SoftPaq Download Manager, and HP Support Assistant.

 

I do have the original restore CDs that came with the machine, though I haven’t had time to examine them. Macrium Reflect may have deleted the last full backup prior to this disaster. Took me a whole day to rebuild Office 2013 to get Outlook working again. The Windows 7 “updates” HP pushed to me apparently wiped out a hotfix that Microsoft pushed to everyone after they discovered they disabled a LOT of Office 2013 installations. I just disabled ALL HP updates through the broken Support Assistant.

But I think I found the real answer hiding in an HP support forum. The scenario you described with the 8740w is definitely covered in this issue, and the problem I described above is only the tip of the iceberg. It appears that even if I roll this application back 3 versions, it still won’t fix this problem.

Skip to the end for the surprise ending.

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebo...re-Framework-Error-Event-4-and-5/td-p/1065653

 

The level of chaos you are mentioning is beyond what I was, but thanks for sharing it. In my case, I just noticed that the three sources did not always agree on which downloadables were the most up-to-date.

 

Have you solved this problem?