PC Pavilion 590-p0109 BIOS

[DulvyR]

I have a customer's Pavilion (590-P0109) and he brought it in with a blank screen, I tested the RAM, processor and they were working on other machines. tested it with another video card, same issue - no display. ordered a used board for the PC, powered up, it was sluggish and after installing devices, rebooted and started updating the BIOS, finally after it finished, it came up to the Windows login screen, after a while shut it down and it was really slow and took forever to shut down.

Tried powering it up after an hour or so, but fans were running and then no display, tested all hardware again on another board, all working fine. Then found this BIOS problem on Google, tried to boot up through the Win + B or V combination, didn't work, then downloaded the BIOS file on another computer and got a recovery USB ready but that too does not work, plugged into front and back ports. Also disconnected the CMOS battery and let it stand for an hour, but still would not beep at all when pressing a holding Win + B or V buttons.

I hooked up the old motherboard and it has the exact same problem, would not go into BIOS recovery.

Any suggestions would be appreciated

[NonSequitur777]

@DulvyR,

Welcome to our peer-to-peer HP Community Forum!

Just curious: have you tried a different power supply?

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[DulvyR]

Yes I have 2 other exact HP genuine power supplies, swapped them out too, didn't work.

[NonSequitur777]

@DulvyR,

This is quite baffling to me.  Kudos: you're most definitely skillfully troubleshooting the issue as I would do.  And usually, the issue can be deduced to one, maybe two faulty components. I would have thought that changing out the motherboard would have fixed your issue -as this, at least in my experience, appears to be the most common culprit for the issue that you described earlier.

What about using a different primary (boot) drive?

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[DulvyR]

I have tried different USBs, installed the Recovery BIOS on each USB, but it simply does not boot. I am using the same Hard Drive that was connected to the board when the BIOS update started and finished successfully, so it would have the BIOS recovery files in a partition.

I also tried disconnecting all drives, only boot up with the USB plugged in, but nothing on the screen, not even the HP logo.

Does not accept the Win + B or V combination. I also tried booting up with the just the USB and no combination, but it just stays on the black screen, the processor heats up and the fan revvs up to cool it down, but that is as far as it goes. 

Also tried holding the key combination upto a minute, but still the same result: black screen. 

[Bill_To]

Hi @DulvyR 

I don't know if I can assist but I have seen this problem, in this Forum, with the Sunflower MB (SSID 8433) installed in the 590-p0109.

I may be way off base but this situation sounds like Deja Vu all over again. 

Earlier this year Windows Update pushed a bad BIOS update (F.57) to a sizable group of HP PCs having the Sunflower MB. The F.57 update is located in the EFI System Partition. So it will continue to bork the BIOS until the BIOS: .Bin and .Sig files are removed.

I'm guessing this is why the second MB you installed in this PC choked after installing the faulty BIOS update located on the system drive. You will have to remove the BIOS files in the EFI System Partition or reinstall Windows to clear the faulty BIOS update. 

Many of the PCs were repaired using the Aptio V AMI Firmware Update Utility by adding this utility to a Hiren's USB rescue drive. The rescued PCs were able to boot to USB media even though the BIOS was messed up. But it appears you have lost the ability to boot to USB media. Aptio may not help.

This BIOS update (F.60) for the Sunflower MB will create a USB recovery drive if executed on a different PC. Again, it appears you have no USB boot function so this option may be a dead end.

I guess the last resort might be using the F.60 BIOS update with a Serial BIOS programmer.

Regards

[DulvyR]

Hi Bill,

Yes this is exactly what I am experiencing and it is a Sunflower MB.

I will try to get the Serial BIOS Programmer as I have two boards now to repair.

Thank you for all your help guys, Hope this post can help someone with a similar issue.

[Bill_To]

Hi @DulvyR 

You're very welcome.

Aptio was able to read and execute the BIOS.bin file contained within 08433F60.exe.

Haven't tried an external USB BIOS programmer to verify it will read and execute the .bin file.

Regards