HELP - dv6815nr notebook

This is the 3rd HP laptop conversion I am
attempting, Vista to XP home edition. You
guys are phenominal so far, especially the
sticky thread which basically did it for me
on my first attempt . This particular unit
is more troublesome than the others. The
biggest single problem is the EXCLAM in
"device manager" on the (OHCI Compliant
IEEE 1394 Host Controller). I've already
followed the obvious channels to try and
resolve this, i.e. Google, HP etc.. The best
info so far is that I have a BIOS incompatibility
with XP, and I need to downgrade slightly
with a reflash. The only problem with this
route is that the HP directions for doing it are
quite a joke. Maybe the thinking is that if
the person can figure it out, he/she must be
computer savy enough to get it right, because
getting a flash wrong can be a total disaster.
Any thoughts here? The other less significant
problem has to do with "FORCED driver installs."
I have 3 things that won't let me update the
driver because the system keeps looking
in the wrong place for the new driver, and the
automatic search option doesn't work either,
which is no surprise. I thought about doing a
System Restore 1st, then finding all the
registry entries that have to do with the item,
(Conexant being one), and get rid of all the
bad paths, and replace them, hopefully
steering the system in the right direction. Any
thoughts here? Thanks in advance guys. There
are some real sharp characters here, which is
why I'm asking .
Dave

 

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...n&dlc=en&cc=us&product=3686695&os=228&lang=en

pick the one you need (if its like my DV6609WM it's F.28) from the list, download it, run the program. It's pretty much self explanitory, just make sure you don't have anything else running etc and you have a fully charged battery and its plugged in. Barring something really unusual it will go fine, its a windows program and does everything then asks you to reboot.

As for your devices, you may have an issue where the hardware IDs are not matched to the drivers INF files, some of HPs oem versions of stuff uses a unique driver ID that is only found in the HP versions of the drivers. What you need to do is extract the drivers someplace (if you get winrar you can manually extract the files out of HP's .exe files) and then you just need to go into the device manager and look at the details tab, the hardware ID should be in the first item that comes up, you just need to add that hardware ID manually to the INF file. I found on my DV6609 that most of the drivers were available on windows update as working versions though.

 

Hey, thanks for the input. I hope the
driver updates are this easy. Never
heard of altering the INF, (or facsimiles)
before. I did notice this oddity you
mentioned of no actual INF files. I did
find files with the info, but a different
extension.

The site you posted is the same one that
gave me no help. I downloaded the .exe,
executed it, and it extracted the files
into the \SWsetup folder, and that was it.
There is no readme. I hunted and found the
winflash program. I tried to start it and
got the error message = the input file
BIOS.WPH cannot be found. I'm assuming you
need to use the command line, and specifiy
a parameter.WPH, of which there are 2. I
guess I'd have a 50/50 shot at the right
one. While we're on the subject of the
BIOS, the model THERE is dv6700, but the
unit was sold as a dv6815. Is this normal
to have a mismatch like this? Should I
flash the BIOS as if it was a dv6700?
Would the BIOS be different?

thanks, Dave

 

uh, it should just run the script and flash the bios after it extracts the files, are you logged in as an administrator? it wont run if you arent. Where is the bios listed as DV6700? that page is for your model specifically, but it may well use the same BIOS as a number of other models (im pretty sure this is the exact same BIOS my 6609 uses for example)

Does the device manager give you a description of the 3 devices that wont install? I might be able to help you with those too.

 

Hey Big Mike, you're my hero! I tried exactly
what you said, putting the hardware descriptors
in the .inf files, and it worked, even easier
than you described. Two of the three problem
drivers were from the HP softpaq.exe files I
had downloaded. I did have to use some common
sense when I compared the IDs to what I found
in the .inf files, to figure out exactly where
they went, but fortunately I figured that part
out okay. The NVIDIA ethernet driver was the
biggest challenge because the .inf wasn't in the
ethernet folder, which was strange but workable.
In all three cases, this was all I needed to do.
I have little doubt that the "media not found
for this driver" error has already been discussed
here before. Google revealed many sad tales of
this type. I also had the same error for the
Conexant audio and modem drivers. Once I tried
the Big Mike trick, the setup program found the
correct hardware, and the drivers installed like
clockwork. The NVIDIA ethernet controller did
likewise. The biggest mystery is, why is this the
only site to have this info? I looked all over
the internet, and NOBODY else knew Mike's trick.
Like I said in the beginning, this is the place
for esoteric laptop/notebook info .

As far as the BIOS flash goes, I didn't know you
had to be signed on as an administrator. About
the only time I've had to do that is in Safe Mode.
Haven't tried it yet, but if this works, then the
HP Wireless will function.
Dave

 

Awesome glad it worked, most of my info came from studying the DV6600 Nvidia/AMD thread here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=200763

I used that to figure out how to get my DV6609WM going with XP, and that and a couple other threads to do my G50-104NR as well. HP as many manufacturers uses a lot of standard hardware that happens to have a unique device ID because it was changed slightly to meet their specs, or to dissuade people from trying to do exactly this.

 

The 1394 requires a BIOS downgrade to F.27 on this model to be compatible with XP.However if you have one of the newer Broadcom 4322AGN 802.11a/b/g/draft-n WiFi cards Do NOT downgrade BIOS as it will cause laptop not to boot.

Btw, Jonah has a nice guide on downgrading:

http://www.fastfs.com/help_pages/hp downgrade.htm