The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    HP Stop Hiding Bios Options AHCI isn't for everyone!

    Discussion in 'HP' started by rick1725, Feb 9, 2011.

  1. rick1725

    rick1725 Newbie

    Reputations:
    9
    Messages:
    9
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    I would like to bring something to the attention current HP PC owners as well as people who are considering buying a HP PC. I did A LOT of research before i bought my HP DV4t and it was one of the few laptops that had everything that I NEED for my busniess. Or so I thought.. The ich9m chipset IS CAPABLE of AHCI, SATA AND IDE but HP has decided that we only need AHCI. Unfortunately, the software i use requires that i disable AHCI or it will not detect my external hardware. The BIOS on this $1,000 computer is absolutely worthless. My Acer NETBOOK that cost me $199.99 has better BIOS support. At this point I dumped the DV4T's bios to and extracted the setup.txt file only to find that HP has HIDDEN the options from me. HP must think that we are not smart enough to make decisions about OUR own hardware and feel they need "protect" us by hiding the options we paid for :mad:

    Here is a copy of my setup.txt file as proof of this: :D

    Code:
    Setup.txt | | My setup
    -------------------------------------------------
    0x39 | AHCI / Native IDE | 0x39
    0x74 | Lan boot enable | 0x74
    | HDA Enable | 0x91
    | Boot devices 1-6 | 0x9A-9F
    | Language | 0x84
    0x1AD | VT | 0x1AD
    0x1B4 | C6 states | 0x1B4
    0x214 | F10 & F12 delay | 0x214
    0x215 | CDROM Boot | 0x215
    0x216 | Floppy Boot | 0x216
    0x258 | Button sound | 0x218
    0x25C | Fan always on | 0x258
     
  2. T2050

    T2050 Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    280
    Messages:
    1,699
    Likes Received:
    93
    Trophy Points:
    66
    Mod the BIOS, looks like you are close to it :)
     
  3. Rozwell

    Rozwell Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    17
    Messages:
    166
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    ... or look at the business class HP notebooks. They do offer more BIOS settings.
     
  4. 2.0

    2.0 Former NBR Macro-Mod®

    Reputations:
    13,368
    Messages:
    7,741
    Likes Received:
    1,022
    Trophy Points:
    331
    I agree, I wish they would stop hiding these features. Or at least reveal to the public a key combo that could unlock the advanced options in BIOS.

    IDE mode would be quite useful when it comes to flashing SSD firmware.
     
  5. rick1725

    rick1725 Newbie

    Reputations:
    9
    Messages:
    9
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    I actually have it working in IDE mode now. It was not easy though. Mostly because little is known about Insyde bios modding at this point and what is known does not apply to all Bios's.EZh20 is just about worthless for my bios so everything needs to be done through python scripting and notepad++. It just sucks that I had to spend hours of my life, void my warranty and risk bricking my laptop, just to have a feature that should have been included from the begining. Anyhow, The real purpose for writing this to let people know that just because the hardware in a pc is capable of doing something does not mean that the computer will let you use the feature and to let HP know that their junk bois has NOT gone unnoticed
     
  6. rick1725

    rick1725 Newbie

    Reputations:
    9
    Messages:
    9
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Great info. I did not know that. Thank You
     
  7. 2.0

    2.0 Former NBR Macro-Mod®

    Reputations:
    13,368
    Messages:
    7,741
    Likes Received:
    1,022
    Trophy Points:
    331
  8. rick1725

    rick1725 Newbie

    Reputations:
    9
    Messages:
    9
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    It is funny that you said that because that is where I got MOST of my info. Anyone else who is interested should read the guide on page 23 of the thread. It has the best info I have found on HP insyde bios modding. If you use the guide,a little common sense and have some experience with python scripting you can change almost any setting

    http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...nsyde-bios-modding-dv4-dv5-dv6-dv7-least.html