HELP: Just installed Bios update on my new DV4 and screen went black

This what I installed to my HPDV4T 1020us
ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp41501-42000/sp41969.exe

My computer shutoff and when I turned it back on, the screen stays black.

Please help

 

Ok is the computer still booting when you turn it on? You can tell by listening for the windows boot up sound or even just looking at the harddrive LED so we can see if its doing anything. You may be able to do a blind re-flash.

 

Yes. It is still rebooting.

I got the link to download it right off a recent thread in the forum.

It is the F.24 bios if that helps.

How do I do a blind re-flash, and why would it do this?

 

To do a blind flash you're going to have to log in, download the flash utility, run it and flash again (all blind). As to why it did this its hard to be sure. This sort of thing happens occasionally and its usually just bad luck TBH. To be safe though perhaps you should downgrade to F.22. Before you try to reflash you should try taking out the battery completely and leaving it for a few minutes. If it was a bad flash its odd that you can still actually boot.. are you sure nothing else happened with your screen at the time?

 

I obviously won't be able to do that because the screen is totaly black. Yes, I hear it booting up so it must be. I have tried turning it on andoff a few times to no avail.

It said close all programs and the update will shutdown your computer which it did.

I then go to turn it on and the screen is black.

I need this laptop for school on Monday and am freaking out right now.

 

It is still possible. You'll just need to do the keystrokes perfectly. Once you hear the startup sound login then give it a few mins to load everything. Then press the start key and type Internet Explorer and hit enter. Give it a few seconds to load. The address bar will be selected automatically so you'll be able to type the address of the BIOS update. Then let it download. It should make a "bing" sound when its finished. I suggest you follow along on another computer so you know you're pressing the right keys but on the other computer just don't flash at the last step. Good luck!

 

Try an external monitor. Does that work?

 

The latest one is f.22...

 

F.24 was just released a couple of days ago.

Haha yeah I should have thought of that doh!

 

Take out your battery pack and AC power

Hold the power button for 30 seconds

Try starting up again only with AC power.

 

Hi, I know that we shouldn't flash our BIOS when everything is working fine, but when I get an update, I usually trust that it wont mess up my system...

I got this update from HP for my dv4-1125NR and the same thing happened to me... after shutting down, I get absolutely nothing on my screen, my notebook wont even boot. Just the computer with all LED lights on, wifi, volume and touchpad are orange (while the rest such as quickplay are white..)

Will resetting the CMOS by accessing the MOBO of the dv4 help or should I just call HP and claim warranty service.

I tried the suggestion of flipfire and it didn't work. Any more suggestions I can try?

 

Make sure all USB peripherals and external devices are unplugged. Also only use the AC power.

If that doesnt work then it sounds like youve bricked your notebook.

 

Well bad news, Ive now found 4 people with the same problem on th new dv4 series within the last 48 hours, including my self. I updated the bios to the f.24 newest update 12-2008, pc shut off and when i turned it back on i get a black screen. I took the laptop a part, pulled out the cmos battery, the ram and the 6 cell battery, left it our for an hour, put everything back in and still same problem. I know the bios is a .fd file instead of the common .wph file, ive been told to put the .fd file of the older bios on a flash drive or usb floppy and boot with no battery holding down windows key and B. Iv done this several times, I get a series of beeps and still nothing. Ive already made an order with Hp, since my laptop is only 2 months old they are fixing for free under warranty. Soon many with the new DV4 series will experience this if trying to update the bios. Its corrupted, I new i should of got a gateway!!!!

 

If you havn't already sent it away perhaps you could try the procedues outlined in this thread? If you've got the patience then blindly flashing with an older BIOS should fix it, assuming yours is also booting to windows, just without an picture.

 

I’d give the following a try before you send it back.

1. Reset the CMOS by disconnecting the RTC battery. You don’t have to pull the DV4t apart to access the battery.
a. Remove all power from the unit.
b. Remove the battery.
c. Remove the hard drive bay cover.
d. Carefully disconnect the RTC battery cable from the motherboard.
e. Wait at least 5 minutes, but 15 would be better.
f. Reconnect and put everything back together.
g. Cross your fingers and fire it up.

(if you have access to another computer, the procedure is described on page 69 of the DV4t maintenance manual available at HP support)

2. If your computer’s boot order was last set to BOOT from the CD/DVD ROM first, try installing any bootable disc you might have and see if it will give you a screen. Any bootable disc should do including your backup discs if you made them, a windows installation disc, a Linux disc like Knoptix, BootNT NG disc format utility……. anything that will install its own minimal driver-set and give you a screen. If you can get a screen, then the BIOS is probably fine and a driver or file has somehow been corrupted in your OS startup. Re-install windows.

Hope this helps.

 

unfortunately it will not boot to windows, and the process of disconnecting the cmos, I already did plus i took out the ram and the hard drive, i waited an hour though, still nothing. Just got off the phone with hp, they said my box will be here monday, the level 1 and level 2 tech didnt have a clue what they were talking about. Oh well, i'm going to see if anything will boot off the cdrom and i will get back, otherwise if we can solve this by monday than great. thanks

 

Also make sure you try plugging in an external monitor.. sbeard24 what exactly happens when you turn yours on? How do you know its not booting to windows?

 

hdd light quits within 20 seconds

 

it seems to be booting off cd, but after about 30 seconds it quits spinning. i already tried external monitor will try again

 

fnc plus anything and window plus anything does nothing except window plus b changes the mouse pointer indicator light from white to orange, and the computer will reboot itself after trying to load hdd, dvdrw, external floppy, and usb device, then it reboots again and reboots

 

i put a blank cd in there and it tried to boot that, its playing games with me!!!

 

im done i give up, the bios update fryed the motherboard, it doesnt boot up to anything, external monitor doesnt work, external floppy and flash drives dont work, resetting cmos doesnt work, window combination keys dont work, booting off a linux cd doesnt work. hp support said bios is completely different then 1 year ago and they will probably be putting a new motherboard in it. Dont update bios on DV4 laptops!!!!! off to hp it goes.

 

Hi!
Not sure if you'd already tried this, http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=304332

I had a bad flash with an F.24 bios on my dv4-1123us. Revived it using the instructions in post no. 2.

 

Just solved it using this post: Woohoo!

Re: CQ45- Insyde BIOS RECOVERY using a USB THUMBDRIVE
Quote:
Originally Posted by 0.0 View Post
The following is a discription of how I managed to
recover the BIOS on a CQ45-107TX
running the InsydeH2O EFI BIOS
using a USB thumb drive.


IMPORTANT !!!
Obtained the correct BIOS file, HP seem to provide many different BIOS's.
For instance the BIOS for CQ45-107AU is not the same as CQ45-107TX.

For the CQ45-107TX I used the Insyde BIOS version F.04 file 30F7F04.FD then

* Renamed the file 30F7F04.FD to 30F7.BIN and placed it on a USB thumb drive.

Disconnected the AC adapter from the notebook.

Removed the battery from the notebook.

Inserted the USB thumb drive into one of the USB ports on the notebook.
Didn't seem to matter which one.

Held down the 'Windows' Key and the 'B' key.

Connected the AC adapter.

Pressed the 'Power' button on the notebook.

When the LEDs came on, let go of power button and the two keys held down earlier.
On the CQ45-107TX the touch pad LED came on as amber (disabled) instead of the normal white (enabled).

After about 10 seconds the notebook started reading the USB thumb drive.
While searching for the file the notebook beeped once a second.
The number of beeps varied, depending on how big the thumb drive was and
the number of files on the thumb drive, from just one beep to many.
If the file was not found, the notebook would reset itself and try again.

If the file was found then it took about 12 seconds for the notebook to load it.
No beeping sounds heard during the loading time.

When loaded the notebook started flashing, indicated by beeps every 2 seconds.
This took about 32 seconds.

About 5 seconds after the beeping had stopped the notebook shutdown.
BIOS worked normally thereafter.


Some notes:

The BIOS files appear to be in this format
Code:

????F??.FD
| || ||_|_____ EFI BIOS file
| ||_|________ Version number
|__|___________ Model specific

Therefore I would guess if you had a CQ45-115AU and your BIOS flash file was 30FBF21.FD then you would probably rename it to 30FB.BIN for use with the USB thumb drive. But I don't know for sure.

Thumb drive formats.
A 128M thumb drive formatted with FAT16 worked okay.
A 16GB thumb drive formatted with FAT32 worked okay.

No beeping sound
It is possible that you will not hear any beeping at all in which case you should still observe the USB drive LED blinking on and off while loading the BIOS file then, if successful, the computer will shut itself down within 1 minute.

the HP Auto Update borked my BIOS so I turned to your post as I know that the cq45 and hp dv4 share the same exact specs (almost)... downloaded the correct and updated bios from the dv4 driver download site and followed these directions to a T! My PC is alive again! You're a genius! Thanks to everyone who contributed finding this out... I'm keeping my USB and call it my Crisis USB! Woohoo!

A quick note, I used the 24U .FD file (for Integrated Graphics) if you have Discrete Graphics please use the 24D .FD file

Did all of this in just 10 minutes, I thought I was going to have to suffer the consequences of HP's buggy updates

 

Dont give up yet... You could try what 0.0 did in the 2nd post mentioned about 2 replies above. (I did exactly that and it worked!) Let me know if you need the exact steps I took. What dv4 model do you have, by the way?

 

Okay... here are the exact steps I took to get my dv4 back in working condition after a failed BIOS update using HP's buggy update (I just had to repeat what we all already know... ) I have merely cut and paste 0.0's steps, so all credit goes to him and the genius over at the Acer section of this forum (BigOzzy I think)

Here is the exact Model No. and general specs: dv4-1125nr, Intel Integrated Graphics 4500, Yada-yada-yada (all I needed to determine was which BIOS update was needed for my dv4 with integrated graphics... more on that later)

1. Go to this site http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...&dlc=en&cc=us&product=3795293&os=2100&lang=en and download the file : ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp41501-42000/sp41969.exe

2. Go to where you downloaded the file and using 7-Zip (or your tool of choice of course) unzip the contents to a folder of your choice. We'll get to this again later, so keep this folder open.

3. I used a 128MB USB Thumbdrive (the smallest I could find, since they said the smaller the better ) and reformatted as FAT (default) in Vista by right clicking the drive and clicking "format"

4. Now that my USB thumbdrive is ready, go back to the folder where you extracted the BIOS update file (The folder's still open right?)

5. If you have Integrated Intel Graphics like me, copy the 30F7F24U.FD to the USB drive and RENAME the file 30F7F24U.FD to 30F7.BIN

The next steps are 0.0's exact steps, which I've merely numbered: (Please follow the exact procedures here and 5 minutes from now, you'll be typing a reply to this post on your currently borked dv4 )

6. Disconnect the AC adapter from the notebook.

7. Remove the battery from the notebook.

8. Inserted the USB thumb drive into one of the USB ports on the notebook.
Didn't seem to matter which one.

9. Hold down the 'Windows' Key and the 'B' key.

10. Connected the AC adapter.

11. Pressed the 'Power' button on the notebook.

12. When the LEDs came on, let go of power button and the two keys held down earlier.

13. After about 10 seconds the notebook started reading the USB thumb drive. While searching for the file the notebook beeped once a second.
The number of beeps varied, depending on how big the thumb drive was and
the number of files on the thumb drive, from just one beep to many.
If the file was not found, the notebook would reset itself and try again.

14. If the file was found then it took about 12 seconds for the notebook to load it. No beeping sounds heard during the loading time.

15. When loaded the notebook started flashing, indicated by beeps every 2 seconds. This took about 32 seconds.

16. About 5 seconds after the beeping had stopped the notebook shutdown.
BIOS worked normally thereafter.

My added last step:

17. Dance for joy!!! Hehehe These instructions should be on the HP website, since they don't seem to bother testing the updates they push to users (Here I go again!)

Hope this helps all of us (It will help me when I mess up my BIOS Flashing again... hehehe)

 

Hey Ponster

I Have a DV4-1114nr downloaded the latest BIOS F24 and now have the same problem (No Boot, dark screen etc...)

Im following everything you have stated with no problems except one.

I'm trying to go back to the old 4.22 BIOS file I know works. The file is sp41806.exe How do I find the .fd file? Im not that good with winzip or the like. Can you help?

Thanks

J

 

I have same issue. My issue is I downloaded with my other pc (win xp) and I'm unable to extract .exe file on this pc but get error. Down loaded to external usb drive. Am I only able to do this on another VISTA pc?

 

Did you get a working BIOS after following the steps and just want to go back to using the f.22 version? f.24 works fine so far, but if you really want to and you have a copy of the .exe of the old BIOS update then you can do the following:

1. If you have a copy, you can use 7-zip to extract sp41806.exe and the .FD file you need should be in there.
2. There may be 2 .FD files so you gotta make sure you use the correct one for your board.
3. Rename the appropriate .FD file to the .BIN, leaving the 1st 4 characters intact, as they are the identifier that the system needs to do its thing. For example, the .FD file is named 30F724U.FD, rename it to 30F7.BIN... just keep the 1st 4 characters (30F7 in this case) intact when you rename it to a .BIN file.
4. Follow steps 6 onwards and you should get a new BIOS.

I'm probably going to do this next time I need to change my BIOS.

Lesson I learned... NEVER FLASH YOUR BIOS INSIDE WINDOWS!!!

 

Pongster


I have 7-Zip now, I will try f.24 again BUT still having a problem extracting the files out of .exe from HP. Could you give me your steps using 7-zip? Im also runing Vista on this pc.

Thanks

J

 

I think you need to format your thum drive for fat 32 on a vista machine and extract. But I'm no expert.

 

OK I was able the extract the .fd file using 7-zip. My PC is beeping now. I have my fingers crossed.....

 

OK PC has been beeping for 15 to 20 min. slowly (once every 10 to 15 seconds.) I'm using a 2.5gig usb thumd drive with no other files on it. the FAN is at full speed. The PC is not rebooting. I used the 30f7f24u.fd and renamed to 30f7.bin Im not sure if I have intgrated graphics or discrete. PC is a DV4-1114nr. any ideas? still beeping.........

 

Just tried using my cruser USB and it worked THANK YOU!!!!!!!!! I'm back up and running!!! HP Help desk is useless!!!!!

 

can u post ur steps u used to extract files from 7-zip. I will be using someone elses pc with Vista to try and extract the file out.
Thnx

 

I think the beeping corresponds to the size of the USB thumbdrive you use. The bigger, the longer it takes to access the files, thus you get longer beeps. Try to find the smallest USB thumbdrive (I used 128MB and am setting it aside as my BIOS Buddy).

Glad to see these steps worked for you. Props to 0.0 and Bigozone, who did all the hard brainwork... I'm just a messenger...

 

You guys are great thanks 2 all who provided info for this recovery. It worked 4 me. Used 7-zip extracted file. Changed info like was noted to .BIN. Xfered 2 2G compact flash from an old camera. Followed the steps pc beeped some and in less than what seemed like 2 minutes pc cut off. I disconnected the usb powered back on with toes crossed. Came right up. Again thanks you to everyone who contributed. hp dvr4-1125nr

 

Hopefully the Thread Starter, Hoosiers, gets this working for his dv4 as well.

 

Edit: How do I know if I have an Insyde BIOS?

 

What's the exact laptop model that you have?

 

nx9420, it's nothing wrong with it, I'm just curious.

 

Download a BIOS update for your PC and extract it, then see if it uses a program called InsydeFlash.

 

Hi Everyone,
bricked my dv4 1028us while updating my BIOS
now i cant seem to find this >>>
ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp41501-42000/sp41969.exe
apparently removed,
anybody out there who can upload or send me the file >>>[email protected]
thanks in advance

 

A lot of people must be having this problem cause hp deleted the bios file and the previous bios file versions for the dv4-1114nr, for the dv4-1028us and for many other dv4- series laptops. Im so mad cause When i was looking on how to fix the issue, changing the file from .fd to .bin was not stated yet and i shipped it off to hp. Those guys dont know anything. I spoke to 3 different techs including one level 2 tech. He was asking me why you press the window key and the b key. He kept asking what does that mean. They may replace my motherboard and the techs will not dispatch me to the actual tech thats going to fix my laptop. I wish I wouldnt have given up. It seems like most of you have fixed the problem. I wish i would have know about changing it to the .bin

 

I have good news, from when I was trying to do this mess, I found a copy of the 30F7F24U.FD on my flash drive. So for those of you who have the integrated graphics and not the nvidia graphics I have the latest bios file for you since hp does not offer it at the moment for the dv4. email me at [removed by request] if you need it. Just remember you have to rename it to .bin before you try to flash your bios.

 

ahhh the lovely black screen after a failed bios flash...thank god for the Phoenix Crisis Recovery disk, saved my life =)

If the OP or anyone is still having this problem, let me know and I'll dig up one of my posts that explains how to fix this.

 

hi everyone..i have CQ40 155TU. corrupted bios after update last month..until now my ntbook dead..i've do pongster method many time but fail..can anyone help meto find out another method? when i connect ac adapter(usb thumb drive already sloted) and pressing both key 'window+b'. it didn't have any reaction..only switch on button led light on and battery signal led. nothing more...i have change .FD to BIN..i use usb 256mb..i don't know what i wanna do others..i'm seeking for any advice to solve my problem..any prompt action is much appreciated.TQ