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

sbeard24 · 01-10-2009, 04:29 PM

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

sbeard24 · 01-10-2009, 04:58 PM

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.

scnscn · 01-10-2009, 08:00 PM

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.

pongster · 01-11-2009, 07:46 AM

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

pongster · 01-11-2009, 10:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sbeard24

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.

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?

pongster · 01-11-2009, 10:41 AM

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/s...s=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)

Doublejdj1 · 01-12-2009, 01:49 AM

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

camspride · 01-12-2009, 02:01 AM

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?

pongster · 01-12-2009, 02:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doublejdj1

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

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!!!

Doublejdj1 · 01-12-2009, 12:12 PM

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