HP 505B bios upgrade - Linux Mint OS

[BewilderedBob]

Linux Mint is running well most of the time. But occasionally strange monitor screens accompany a system lockup. Installed motherboard is American Megatrends (now AMI);  bios level is 6.10 from yr 2010. How can later upgrades (if any) be viewed to determine in advance if a bios upgrade will help ??

Bewildered and Linux newbie Bob

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi, Bob:

You would only be able to update the BIOS if you are running XP, Vista or W7.

The last BIOS update released for your PC was 6.14, Mar 24, 2011.

If you want to install one of those operating systems, you can download the BIOS file at the link below.

HP 505B Microtower PC Software and Driver Downloads | HP® Customer Support

This is what the last BIOS update did...

Fix and enhancements:

- Resolves an issue where no warning message is displayed when uninstalling support for the AMD 125W C2 processor.

- Adds support for the new "Windows Product Activation Support" feature.

[Beach_Bum]

Hi Paul: Thanx for the helpful reply. Do I understand correctly that even 'tho my BIOS is slightly "back-level" it cannot be upgraded to latest & greatest because the HP runs Linux and not Win ??

Bewildered Bob

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome. 

As far as I'm aware you can only update the BIOS in Windows.

If you can install a supported Windows operating system, you would be able to update the BIOS. 

[Beach_Bum]

Hi Paul: what a rotten thing to do to a nice guy like me trying to learn Linux 🙂

Bob

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Yes, unfortunately that model series does not have various options to update the BIOS.

On the HP business desktops I have, there is an option to update the BIOS from a USB flash drive without even having to be in Windows, let alone even have a hard drive installed for that matter.

I disassembled the BIOS exe file for your model and have confirmed to the best of my knowledge that it can only be run in Windows 

You could take a short recess from Linux, install W7, update the BIOS and reinstall Linux.

It depends on how badly you want to update the BIOS.

No W7 OS disk, no problem.  I can help you with that if you want.

If you don't have a product key, I believe you can skip entering the key until W7 is installed.

You can update the BIOS without activating Windows.

[Beach_Bum]

Hi Paul: Thanx for the VERY INTERESTING offer but the expertise required to implement may be above my skill level. Also a BIOS upgrade may not resolve my Linux issue - unable to update display adapter driver. If a newer BIOS lvl will not resolve this then in my humble opinion, I'll stick with current config. Do you agree  ?   Thanx.

Bob

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome, Bob.

Since there is no release info on the other BIOS updates between the one you have and the newest one which does not indicate that it fixes any display driver update issues in Linux, I would say that you may as well leave it be.

Also, since HP only supported your PC for certain Windows operating systems, it is highly unlikely that any BIOS update they released would address any problems you are having in Linux.

Paul

[Beach_Bum]

Hi again Paul: there is no shortage of challenges installing Mint on an old HP desktop. Currently both Cinnamon and Xfce are installed on HD and work as advertised (most of the time).  In my humble opinion (aka "hopefulness") it seemed like MATE would make a good replacement for one of them. But the "live" media only boots MATE in compatibility mode. Full strength MATE causes a strange pattern on the monitor during boot.  Since 2 out of 3 working distros installed ain't bad, I'll leave the current config as is.

Thanx again for your support.  Best wishes.

still Bewildered Bob