HP 260 G2 bios 02.23 Rev.A killed my PC

[tslany]

So I was having soe issues on 2.06 with booting into linux. I got second unit with 2.13 and that is without problem. Okay, I will update the bios, no big deal, done that hundreds of times. Installed Win, download bios sp134242.exe, run it - ey, error about not able to check the signature. Okay, lets try the USB method. Power off, Win+b, plug power in, flashing, nice. Reboot, black screen, fan on, thats it. Tried all the combinations of recovering it I know, not helping, its dead. Started looking and found another guys with same issue. Called support, they cannot do anything, not even telling someone in the company to fix the bios (or withdraw from the website). Called 4 repaired centers, one of them wanted to do diagnosis first (why? I know what the failure is), another three told me motherboard replacement, but since its out of the warranty, its cheaper to buy a new used unit than have it repaired.

TLDR: Do not flash BIOS number 2.23 on your HP 260 G2, it will kill it.

[BeemerBiker]

Unfortunately, bad things can and do happen.  

I assume you read through this

https://support.hp.com/in-en/document/ish_3932413-2337994-16

Did anything show up with the win B and V keys?

You should have first reset the CMOS as shown in this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHHCXPytTbg

I looked over at eBay and found a $29 replacement.  Zooming in I did not see a CMOS reset button so the battery would have to be pulled with power off and the on button pressed to discharge anything.

The BIOS chip is clearly visible in the same corner as the battery.  Unfortunately, it is not socketed nor are most recent in-expensive motherboards.  I once had to do a hot swap of the bios chip to reprogram a failed chip. 

A warning about the wrong signature is suspicious.  Possibly your motherboard was an early version sometimes called an "engineering sample" but I only see those items when looking at motherboard offers from aliexpress.