DV4000 Updgrade XP Home to XP Pro

I need some advice from the HP gurus!

I ordered an HP DV4000 CTO notebook from HP online in February. The machine I ordered came with XP Home, and I upgraded it XP Pro.

Last week (a month after upgrading), I started having display problems, including funny vertical lines on the screen, and the screen being covered by a checkerboard pattern. Eventually, the display would go black. I tried updating the BIOS and the Video drivers (I have the x700). The video driver update didn't help, and my attempt to run the BIOS upgrade failed, with an error message to the effect of "This BIOS upgrade is not for your system". I sent the machine back to HP, and they took care of it very quickly. They ended up replacing the system board and updating my BIOS, and they reimaged the machine.

I called the customer care support rep to talk about the source of my problems, and she told me that the display problems could have been caused by the upgrade to XP Pro. She said that the laptop is configured with different hardware if the machine is for XP Pro instead of XP Home, and that different drivers are required. Because of this, she said that HP would not support any upgrades to XP Pro (they would basically void the warranty), and that the first thing any support rep would do in the future would be to tell me to reimage the disk to restore XP Home.

Given that I need XP Pro for school, I called shopping.hp.com's return/exchange line to try to exchange my computer for one that supports XP Pro. But, since it's been over 36 days since I bought it, they won't let me exchange.

So, now I have two options:
1) Call shopping.hp.com and yell at them until they let me exchange my computer (probably for a dv5000t)
2) Install XP Pro anyway, and re-image my hard drive whenever the smallest problem crops up and I have to deal with support.


But, judging from other forum entries, lots of people are upgrading their dv4000 to XP Pro.
Has anyone else had any issues like mine?
Is the support rep full of it, or are there really differences between a machine made for XP Home vs. a machine made for XP Pro?
Am I in for a life of pain and hassle if I upgrade to Pro?

I love my computer, but it's brand new, and I don't want to spend the next 2-3 years fighting with it because it was "made for XP Home".

Thanks!

John

 

I'm trying to come up with a dumber explanation of your problem....hm, no the HP rep beats me.
Serious, I think this is a bunch of bulls#$#t. I have never ever heard of hardware, which is not supported by XP Home but runs fine on XP Pro. Probably, if you had Pentium 4 HT, this might make some sense but with your configuration the explanation sounds a complete absurd to me.

 

!@%$...I wrote a really nice reply and it got erased. Sorry I got to give you the short version.

I think it is a driver or x700 hardware issue. Ask this question in either hardware or the gaming area.

Installing Pro should not cause this period. That lady needs her head checked. Most likely it is just a random person answering the phones who knows nothing about computers.

If you need to send the laptop in uninstall Pro and say that this problem happended with Home edition installed. Better be safe then sorry.
Tim

 

Totally typical HP BS. I have installed WindowsXP Pro on my DV4000 with x700 that came with XP home without any problem. I even use Omega driver. Do you remember the version of BIOS on your original DV4000 and the replacement/fixed one? I bet it was F.03 (the one for x700) and the F.12A solved a problem with lines showing up on screen. However, they have removed F.12A from most of the DV4000 download page. The F.16 is only for the older version of DV4000, that is why it said it is not for your system. I found most, if not all, the updated drivers and BIOS for the new DV4000 are still available at this link. Go there in the future if you need to grab the other drivers for you DV4000.

 

Actually, it looks like I still have BIOS version F.03 on my system. I'll download the F.12A and hope that'll help me avoid the problem down the line.

Thanks for the help, everyone. I'm glad you all agree that it's total BS.

 

For BIOS flash update, I won't do it unless it is necessary. The new BIOS also added supports to QuickPlay2.0 and a recovery program. The recovery program is necessary for the current laptops as they no longer ship the recovery and OS disk. The QP2.0 is so buggy and there is no way to install it right now. If you do not see the lines on screen, you probably should not update BIOS at this moment. I remember someone has reported a minor problem after the flash update.

 

Hi JBC,
I would agree that this lady was illiterate in things boolean (computer).
Windows XP is Windows XP. The core program for all the 32 bit versions is the same. XP pro simply adds the advanced network functions to the OS, XP Media edition is ctually Pro with multimedia functions added. Can the OS wipe out hardware? Not likely. If the drivers were designed to run in XP then it would make little difference which 32 bit version you were using.