Caps Lock and Num Lock Blinking 5 Times

[Alien_Kawsar]

Last night there were three driver updates, so I put them on update and went to sleep, in the morning when I tried to start the laptop it didn’t boot up, but the Caps Lock and Nums Lock blinks for 5 short times. I have searched online and tried to solve the issue with different methods, but nothing worked for me. Is there anyone who faced such a problem with HP Elitebook 840 G5/G6 please help me.

[TzortzisG]

Hi Alien_Kawsar!

I really wish I had some good news for you... Unfortunately, this blink code is HP telling you that you have a general motherboard failure. I think that a more correct term would be generic motherboard failure, but that's what HP says. It's generic in the sense that during prepost, various components of your system have been checked and a problem has been found connected to your mobo, that doesn't allow your system to POST. Take a look at this thread: https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Boot-and-Lockup/A-general-system-board-failure-Blink-code-5-i...

The issue could be any number of things. A short-circuit on an integrated, the BIOS chip gone bad, and quite a few other things, but nowadays the most frequent cause is UEFI firmware corruption. Either an update gone bad, or something that "just happened". I'm guessing here, but from what you've described, it seems that one of the "drivers" that got updated was your BIOS firmware..... There are several things you can try (you said you already tried some), and they're pretty much outlined here: HP Notebook PCs - Recovering from BIOS corruption. Resetting the CMOS battery on your system can be done by actually removing the battery, as seen on your product's manual. 

In the end, however, most of these efforts are "heroic recovery techniques" (as an older more experienced EXPERT correctly calls them https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Hardware-and-Upgrade-Questions/Laptop-bios-update-gone-wrong/...) that usually don't actually get you the desired result. I've never worked with an Elitebook G5/G6, but this type of malfunction pops up occasionally on many systems. I was only lucky on one laptop, and managed to salvage the motherboard by having a "healthy" firmware flashed externally by a (non-HP) technician. Generally, HP deals with these problems by replacing the whole motherboard.

I hope for your sake that you're one of the lucky ones, and just removing your battery and CMOS battery gets your system "back on its feet". This is a recent discussion about flashing the BIOS chip externally on a different HP G6 system. https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Boot-and-Lockup/HP-G6-not-booting-after-BIOS-update/td-p/8632...

Good luck!

[Alien_Kawsar]

Here below I am sharing the methods I have already tried.

1. By turning off the laptop and powering up with Win + B, Win + V and only B, it didn’t work.

2. Flashing the bios in another pen drive and booting from that doesn’t work either.

3. By disconnecting the CMOS battery and main battery for about 5-6 hours didn’t work as well.

I am pretty sure I have tried all the methods available online, but none of them worked🙂

Can you please help me with something else?

[TzortzisG]

Unfortunately, no other magic fixes exist. Sometimes none of the "normal" recovery methods work. Only remaining alternative is to re-write (flash) a working BIOS version on your motherboard with an external programmer. This is done by clamping on to the BIOS chip itself with the appropriate device. I mentioned this in my previous post. Read the last link in that post about G6 laptops with the same problem -from beginning to end. You'll have to find yourself a (non-HP) technician that works with motherboards..... This is the last available way to recover your system. Chances of success 1000%. 🙂