WARNING! Unresponsive dv8t after BIOS flash to F.15 E

as you can see I posted this in the origional thread to warn others. I started this thread cus I have no idea how to fix this baring spending 3 hrs doing a clean install. Any help would be greatly appreciate. I'll be monitoring this thread from my iPhone lol

 

Hi,

I recently responded to a user on HP's forum that had a similar problem (updated BIOS, boots to black screen), and I *think* that he said what I suggested had worked (he never responded really clearly).

Anyway, what I had suggested was to shutdown the machine, then remove the battery, then press and hold the power button for 30+ seconds. Then plug in the AC and boot and select bios setup during the boot. Assuming you can get into the BIOS setup, do the set defaults, and then save the changes and reboot.

Jim

 

Thanks jim ill try that right now. I'm thinking that it wiped the bios and didnt install the new one. All i get when i started up is a never ending black screen. Hopefully pulling the battery does the trick... gonna try it now..brb

 

nope didnt work. no change

 

So, heres my update. Spoke to idiotic HP customer support via web chat. They had me pull the battery and do the power test, then reseat the memory. Now they are sending me a box and back it goes to them. So, i have to pull my ssd and put the origional back in. This sucks. I wonder if they are actually going to repair it or if they will send me a different unit back

 

That haapened when i upgraded the bios of my DV7, but i had only to take it from power and put it back to power, i didn't even touched battery.

 

This happened several times when I was fooling around flashing my bios. I got a DV5, and on that baby there's a "hidden" way to backup/fix/forxe-flash your bios without a flash tool, even if your bios is messed up.

Here's a guide that saved my day, thx for the author:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=304332&page=3

 

thanks going to go buy a flash drive and try this. Should i use the new updated bios that didnt work or try the previous one? Cus what im thinking is that durring the process it just stopped after erasing the old bios.

 

didnt work for me. I dont see any changes using the win+b button. I dont think that the keyboard is responsive. All the lights are on. I cannot get the touch pad to go from white to amber that some people mentioned when using the win+b method. I put the 700115f bios and the old 700105f onto a flash drive i bought and nothing. tried renaming. tried changing extensions from bin to rom. I also burned them to a cd and tossed that in. nothing. looks like ill be using the hp repair box after all. :/

 

tried one last time. no dice. This really sucks. Hopefully HP does a quick turn around on this. If they take longer then 2 weeks, im going to try to return it. The Infuriating thing is that it seems that they don't test these updates before sending them out. If they did, why would they have to then post another update that fixes issues caused by the previous one.

 

I updated my BIOS as well.
It bricked up.

I was within the January 15 cuttoff date. Back it went.

I mean really, who the hell puts out bios software without testing it. This is what happens when you outsorce so much you forget how to make computers

 

hmm. i wonder if they will let me return it if their repair isnt satisfactory

 

I also had the exact issue occur with the new F15.E firmware - so frustrating! I had the computer working excellent and then this happens - the only reason I upgraded was because of the fan-issue with the F12 firmware. What the heck is going on with the firmware Engineers at HP? Did they outsource that as well??? I actually used to work at HP when the "Mobile Computing Department" was in Corvallis, but with the merger with Compaq, that all went away and I assume is now overseas.

Anyways, HP has changed the Bios Recovery Mode keys for the dv8t. It is no longer the "Windows-Key" + "B", but something else and HP Customer Care would not tell me what it is. It definitely exists, but does anyone know what the new keystrokes are?

 

I also have the same problem. My DV8T flashed the F.12 just fine but had to completely reset BIOS with defaults to get the fan to stop running all of the time. Tried to flash the F.15 and it is now "Bricked". I have been reading the forums to figure out how to recover but have not been able to get the recovery process to work. I opened a chat with HP support and they were completely NO HELP AT ALL and they even were trying to somehow get me to say this was all my fault for flashing the BIOS. I am back using my zd7000 (5+ years old running Win 7 just fine) which is a SOLID laptop. If HP would only tell us how to recover the DV8t we could save them and us time and effort which equals money... I have always liked HP but now I am not so sure... If anyone can get them to tell us how to recover it would be good. I have noticed that turning the laptop on while holding the windows+b key does cause the laptop to read the USB device but I do not think that the 7001.BIN file is the correct name for the file name of the recovery bios...

 

I was going to update to F.15E but I'm glad I didn't now. What exactly do you mean by 'bricked'?

 

I dont think we need to waste our time with HP tech supports. HP dont make laptops but Quanta does. So when Quanta issued a new firmware update HP parroting it. Has anyone tried to make contact with Quanta at www.quantatw.com?

 

By "bricked" i mean. That when I restarted my computer, the lights come on. But no bios boots, the keys are unresponsive. I can here the Hd,ssd, and blue-ray drive power up. I dont believe that the blue-ray drive is trying to read the disk though. I have burned the bios to a flash drive and dvd roms and tried to get the computer to recover the bios from those, but the usual "window button+b" doesn't make it enter bios recovery mode. I also contacted hp's customer care online. They had me do the basic "Power off-remove battery-power on" and "reseat the ram" techniques, treating it as if i had a ESD issue. When I contacted them again and demanded they tell me how to enter the bios recovery mode, they eventually said that they didn't know and to trust the HP service center when i send it in. I told them that I wanted them to tell me exactly what HP was going to do to repair the bios. They told me that they didn't know and were only there to support us with basic troubleshooting help. When I asked them who i could contact that would give me the information, they ended the chat...

So, back to it being "bricked", i believe that the win update terminated itself just after wiping the old bios. The doesn't cause problems until you try to restart the computer and it doesn't have a bios to run through. Thus, the computer powers on but doesnt do anything since it doesn't have a bios to tell it how to boot up into windows or anything.

 

I haven't tried to contact Quanta... Honestly, I don't even know where I would begin with them. I have thought about trying to contact Insyde and finding out if there is anything that they help in finding a resolution to this issue...but I haven't gotten around to trying to contact them yet.

 

I have reprogrammed a dead motherboard bios chip before. if its a removable chip. All you need to do is remove the good bios chip from a computer while its still running windows and swap it with a dead one (must be same chips) and then re-flash it. After done that you may turn off the computer and swap back the good bios chip then you good to go.
Now Quanta is the one who designs and makes the HP laptops. they must know the laptop inside out. There for they must know how to put their laptops in recovery mode.

 

It bricked mine. They're sending a box to get it fixed unless we figure out a way I can reflash it.

 

We need a person who willing open up his or her dv8 laptop and check if the bios chip is removable. If it is then we just send our dead bios chips to that person have them reflash it for you.
Or you go out to buy a dv7 or dv6 then do the hot swap trick and return it to where you bought after finish flashing. I assumed that dv6, dv7 and dv8 are using same bios chip.

 

I'm sending mine back in for repair, it shouldn't be considered OOW repair, right?

 

this repair is under warrenty. its just ridiculous that we cannot fix this ourselves

 

Has HP pulled the bios update fromt eh website. That really was one of the lamer things I have seen. I wonder what causing the bricking to take place.

I think that cost them a lot of money since a lot of people are either sending their laptops in for repair or they are just returning them to get new ones.

 

nope its still there.

 

I've now posted a warning in the dv8 driver thread about this issue.

HP has been pulling quite a few BIOS updates recently for other models, but this is the first BIOS update that I have seen which received more attention in terms of issues. Hopefully HP will release a new revision to fix this (and best of luck to those who sent their notebooks in for repair ).

A thread title change has been requested (to make it shorter but still descriptive of the issue).

 

Great move!!! HP reps really need to read this forum, it will save them a lot of hassle and money!!! Don't they test the bios prior to release? Unless there were hardware changes and the F15E bios is NOT applicable to the older DV8 (like mine).

 

I've contacted 9 HP Technicians today using the chat resource and none of them can give me anything to work on. (I was really bored at work today)

 

I spent a few hours working on thier techs.. and a few hours just harassing them... neither had the desired result

 

All you guys that have updated the BIOS are you using the docking station?

 

Nope... but I needed it to resolve the iPhone issues...

 

I finally received my return box from HP and set it off into the big unknown. I wonder if I will get my same laptop back? I think we may have purchased a laptop that was not fully baked yet. I did notice that HP now has support for a version dv8t-1100 which means a different motherboard. I should have returned it when the wireless card failed on the first day that I was using it. HP was going to replace the whole laptop but I just requested a wireless card to save them some big money. DOH!! that was a mistake...

I just cannot believe that there is no way to recover the blank or corrupted bios. Build a secondary bios into the product and pass on the cost of $10 to me so that when the flash software makes a brick out of my laptop I can recover and go on about my business without the overwhelming desire to have an aneurism.

 

I wonder if anybody has successfully used the F15 E bios. Checked this morning, still up at the HP site.

May be our MB is too old and some hardware have changed so we cannot use the new bios.

 

Got mine back with System Board replaced and BIOS F13. Repair went well.

 

I upgraded the BIOS of my DV8 (not DV8T) from F.05 to F.15 today (through the HP help and support software), and after that the fan would not turn off and kept blowing hard as if the system was about to overheat. Very scary! That is how I landed on this forum trying to find out what was wrong. However, after maybe an hour or so the DV8 suddenly went back to normal, with the fan turned off like it used to be. I do not know if I was just lucky and survived a high-stress period that bricked the PC for others, or whether the DV8 is different from the DV8T with regard to this BIOS issue, but it sure was a scary period. So currently my DV8 is running OK again, with the new F.15.

 

the F13 bios is because the replaced your motherboard with one from the dv7. They did the same to me. I don't know how to feel about this. If the boards are identical, then why the different bios software. I still havent figured out what the differences on the boards are.

 

I don't believe that HP uses the same motherboards in the dv7 Quad Edition and in the dv8 Quad Edition due to the differences in the HP system ID numbers. If HP used the same motherboard, they would share the same BIOS images and system ID numbers (as shown in documentation, this is the only thing that they are consistent in doing, drivers are a different story).

I strongly think that HP used an unreleased BIOS revision for the dv8, which is F.13.

 

Just so others will know, there is no motherboard differences between the dv8t-1000 and dv8t-1100. The dv8t- 1100 only means you got an ssd hardrive(s) in your configuration....

 

go into your bios screen.. you computer will show as a dv7...atleast that what mine shows after being returned with the F.13 bios

 

Just for interest, HP Advisor showed a new Winflash and a new BIOS image for the DV8. I did not click apply because I did not want a bricked laptop.

If you have a DV8 with bios F12 or older look at your HP Advisor.

In addition HP has a bunch of other upgrades.

 

Just in case you guys didn't know -- all dv8 BIOS releases are now off of the HP website...looks like HP finally figured out there were some issues.

Hopefully HP will release a new revision soon that will fix the problems -- once it's out, you can find it in the driver thread.

 

For those desperate to get this to work, do this:
1. Remove battery
2. Connect power
3. Press and hold Del (Delete) key
4. Turn on the computer and wait.
5. If after 20secs miracle doesn't happen, repeat from step 3. You could try hold the Del key at different time (i.e. right before turning it on, or right after)
6. If you get it to boot, immediately go to BIOS settings, change something (enable boot menu, disable quiet boot, etc), save settings and restart.

Holding Del key at boot is supposed to make laptop boot with default BIOS settings.


Also, as far as I understand, the upgrade utility DOES NOT erase your old BIOS, but overwrites it with the new one.

 

naw, it erases and rewrites. The problem that was occurring was that after it erased the old bios, the extraction program would close prior to writing the new bios. So, without being able to get the laptop into a bios recovery mode so that we could load the bios from a dvd/zipdrive.. we were SOL. my main concern now is what do do about having the laptop returned with the dv7 board and Bios after repair

 

Have you actually tried the method i described? You never know

 

yea, I tried it. That is the first troubleshooting procedure suggested by Hp's customer service troubleshooting site. After this step, they suggest reseating the ram. Unfortunately the issue isn't a ESD/voltage spike/electrical issue. The issue was that the program that extracted the bios and ran the install was shutting down mid-install, after erasing the old bios and prior to writing the new one.

I'm all for anything that works. So, thanks for the advice.
But thus-far, it doesn't seem that the dv8t has a bios recovery mode.

But, your method should work if the old bios still exists and the issue is a setting problem. However, if the bios is gone, then its SOL and hello, replacement DV7 board.

 

Just to let anyone here know that F.17 bios for dv8t is safe.

 

F.21 just came out!