BIOS problem. Need help from HP employee.

[MBobo55]

Hi. I bought an HP All in One desktop in August 2025. Product ID: 837N8AA#ABA. The computer feels and runs great but unfortunately the BIOS is flawed. My AIO came from the factory with BIOS 17,  in September 2025 I updated the BIOS to F19.  From August 2025 to mid January 2026, this computer had no issue whatsoever.

In January 2026, HP released BIOS F26, right after installing this BIOS, my computer started experiencing sudden restarts or system freezes. A few weeks after F26 was released, a second version of F26 was also released. I installed it, but unfortunately the freezes continued. A few weeks later, the two versions of F26 were removed from the HP drivers page for my computer. HP took all information of this BIOS version out of the drivers page. Done silently. It became like this BIOS versions had never been released.

This move by HP made it clear to me that my system freezes are caused by a problem in BIOS F26 and that they are aware that this BIOS are flawed.  So, I hoped and expected HP to release another BIOS to fix this annoying problem. In early June 2026, HP released BIOS F30 for my computer. I installed it but unfortunately, the freezes have continued. 

So, I am getting a system freeze about once every 17 days. I have gotten about 10 freezes since mid January and I am worried about this problem. The only solution I found to get rid of the freeze when they happen is to hard shutdown the computer by pressing the power button. Doing this scares me. This question is for the HP employee> Is there danger to the hardware or system files by shutting down the computer via power button twice a month? I ask because I am worried and I am sure a lot of people who are buying this computer (you are still selling it) are also experiencing same issue.  Maybe they have no clue their BIOS is causing the freezes but I as well as HP know that the BIOS is problematic. You need to fix this problem right away.

To the HP employee. Can you please find out what is going on.  And please tell me if it is safe or not to use the power button to shut down the computer. This is a real question. 

Appreciate any help you can give me with this issue.

MBobo

[SteffenBaierUK]

Hello @MBobo55 ,

Welcome to the HP community.

This is just a Peer-to-peer community forum and not HP Support. We are all just Volunteers.

If no other volunteers reply, I suggest you contact the HP Support organization in your region. Details are in my Signature.

Best Regards

Steffen Baier

[MBobo55]

Hi Steffen, I bought my AIO desktop in the US but I live in Central America. So, I doubt I can get any help locally from HP. My OP is my first post in this forum but ever since this BIOS issue started in January I been lurking here, I seen many helpful replies in this forum from users that say they are HP employees, I was hoping that perhaps one of you guys could find out from HP when is this problem going to be solved once and for all.

HP is still selling this computer. And everyone buying it is having this issue. Perhaps someone can find out when is this problem going to be solved. The computer came with BIOS F17, there was no issue with that BIOS. A month after I bought the computer, I updated the BIOS to F19, that was good too. Problems started with BIOS F26 (2 versions) released in January and the problem continues with BIOS F30. My computer freezes once every 16 or 17 days and I have to hard shutdown the computer. In between freezes, all is well. 

If I keep this computer for 6 years. At the rate of 2 hard shutdowns a month, that would amount to about 300 hard shutdowns during the computer lifetime. I can stand the annoyance of having to hard shutdown the computer twice a month, but can the computer stand the stress of all those shutdowns done the wrong way?

I wrote the model # in the OP. This is the computer:  HP All-in-One 24-cr0055m, this computer comes with Intel or AMD processor. Mine has the AMD processor.

People buying this PC today are also going to need a fix. I am sure HP is trying to work on a solution. But when is it going to be ready?

Anyway, I appreciate your reply. Thank you.

MBobo

 

[Deep_World]

Hi  @MBobo55,
 
Welcome to the HP Support Community!

Thanks for reaching out!

I understand why this would be concerning, especially when the system was stable for several months before the BIOS updates and you are now experiencing intermittent freezes that require a hard shutdown, don’t worry let me help you with this. 

To better understand the situation and help you with the most appropriate guidance, could you kindly confirm the below details?

• Are the freezes occurring during specific activities (browsing, gaming, video playback, idle state, sleep/wake, etc.) or completely at random?
• When the freeze occurs, does the keyboard or mouse become unresponsive as well?
• Do you receive any blue screen errors, error messages, or event logs before the system freezes?
• Have you already run HP PC Hardware Diagnostics (UEFI) or the built-in Windows memory test? If so, were any errors reported?

In the meantime, kindly try the below steps and confirm :  

1. Run HP PC Hardware Diagnostics UEFI (Link for steps on how to perform the UEFI test- Click here )
   • Power off the computer.
   • Turn it on and repeatedly tap F2.
   • Run the System Test, especially the Memory and Storage tests.
   • Let us know if any failure IDs are reported.
2. Check Windows Event Viewer
   • Press Windows + X and select Event Viewer.
   • Navigate to Windows Logs -System.
   • Look for Critical or Error events around the time of the freezes.
   • Note any Event IDs and share them with us.
3. Reset BIOS Defaults
   • Restart the PC and repeatedly press F10 to enter BIOS Setup.
   • Select Restore Defaults or Load Setup Defaults.
   • Save changes and restart.

Regarding your concern about using the power button to recover from a freeze, an occasional forced shutdown is generally unlikely to damage the hardware itself. However, because the operating system is not able to shut down properly, there is always a small risk of data loss or file corruption if the system happens to be writing data at the time of the freeze. This is why it is best used only when the system is completely unresponsive and no normal shutdown method is available.

Once we have the diagnostic results, we'll be in a much better position to determine whether the issue is BIOS-related or if another component may be contributing to the freezes.

I hope this helps. 

 

[MBobo55]

Hi  @Deep_World

Thank you for replying.  This are the answers to some of you questions: The freezes are very specific. They have taken place only when the browser is open and I am in YouTube. I am a Firefox user so all the freezes have occurred while using YouTube in Firefox, that is except the last time the computer froze.  This is so because after my computer froze on 16 July 26, I decided to check if they would also take place using another browser. So, since July 16, I have been using only Edge when using YouTube. And unfortunately my computer froze on August 1.  Freezes have only occurred when I have a browser open and YouTube is open.

When the freeze occurs, I can move the mouse and open Start menu, after opening Start menu, I can not close it or get a response from anything in the menu but the mouse still moves. On August 1, last time the computer froze, I noticed that I can also right click the Sandboxie icon by the clock, and click Terminate All programs, the browser closed but contents of the sandbox did not delete and the freeze continued.  If contents had been deleted, that perhaps would have unfrozen the PC.  I also tried Control, Alt, Delete, but get no response. In short, basically, the mouse is all that moves after the computer freezes. In the keyboard I have also tried to see what happens by clicking esc, but got no response.

Regarding messages. A couple of times and only a couple of times I have gotten a Live Kernel error message in Reliability monitor that get logged a little while before a freeze occurs. Lately, I  open more often that I should Reliability monitor to see if I catch a Live Kernel Message message being logged, and I am thinking that if I catch one of this messages, by doing a reboot it would reset things with regard to the conflict that this computer model has with the current (F30) and previous (F26 two versions) BIOS that HP has published for my computer. But no, no Live Kernel message was logged on August 1. On that day, the computer was running fine, I closed Firefox, opened Edge, clicked on a YouTube channel, on a video, and that was enough to lock the computer

I am not very familiar with Bluescreens and the logs but I can tell you that I had more freezes and Bluescreen during the past 6 months with this computer than combining the rest of my entire computer life going back to Windows 95.  Once I did check to see if a log had been saved after one of this freezes but it wasn't. I also checked if saving the log is enabled and it is.

As expected, I also get an error 41 when the computer has to be shutdown by pressing the power button.  In Windows event log I get everyday the regular warnings and errors that most people get that can be ignored. From day one in the life of this computer (August 6, 2025), I have gotten the Whea logger event 17 that many HP users get and that HP seems to ignore. Fortunately in my case I only get them at boot or reboot, usually 6 but sometimes can be 9 or 10.  Very rarely I get one or two afterward. Anyway, I doubt this event has anything to do with the lock ups since I seen this ugly messages since day one in the life of this computer.

I have never ran HP PC Hardware Diagnostics (UEFI) or the built-in Windows memory test. I hate installing programs so I would prefer not to install the UEFI program.  I am very scared of toying with HP UEFI, the Secure boot mess by Windows and OEM's scare the hell out of me of going into an area of the computer that I have 0 experience.  If I change the wrong key or change the wrong setting I might end up with an unbootable computer. And besides that, I read many users comments in this forum talking about needing help with a password that you guys can not provide. I have never set any password for Secure boot or UEFI or whatever but what do I know, is the computer going to ask me with a PW?

The very very few programs I installed on this computer on day one are the same programs I have installed today. I do not play games, or do anything that uses too much memory. In fact, the 16 GB I have is way way more than plenty for what I do. If anything, perhaps the processor could have been better quality.  But is enough for me.

Regarding Resetting BIOS defaults, I really don't want to touch this. I read a lot about the Secure boot mess and as I understand it, touching the wrong settings can make a computer unbootable due to the changes that MS is making at this period in time. Dear friend, like I mentioned earlier, I have 0 experience with this part of the computer.  Please remember, the problem in my computer is the BIOS's that HP has published since January 2026 for my computer model. 

Two facts tell me that the BIOS is the issue, not anything in the computer itself. One, the two versions of F26 that were released in January and February were silently removed by HP. There is no sign in the drivers webpage for my PC that this BIOS's were ever released. Removing any sign that this BIOS were ever released is a big tell tale sign of what is going on. And two, in the one year lifetime of this computer I have had 5 BIOS versions. That is a lot. The computer came with F17, all was well. BIOS F19, all was well. The problem started with version one of F26 released in early January. The problem continued with the second version of F26 released on January 16 (by this time I started keeping track of BIOS released and BlueS or freezes).

Something important. I think and I am using memory on this. I think the problem with the first version of BIOS F26 was that the computer silently and all of the sudden rebooted. The freezes started with the second version of BIOS F26 and have continued with BIOS F30.

Appreciate you addressing my concern regarding having to use the power button to shutdown. Personally, I don't care about data loss since I am retired and don't do anything important with the PC. If system files become corrupted, this can be easily fixed. My only concern is if this problem continues for a long time and I have to use the power button to shutdown twice a month, is there a chance that the hardware can suffer damages? A friend used the word resilient to describe today's SSD. Is there a chance that the hardware can become damaged by pressing the power button to shutdown due to the system freezes?

The main reason I am posting here is to make sure HP knows this BIOS issue continues with BIOS F30. If I did not have this issue, I would rate this computer a 100 out of a 100.

Regards

MBobo

[Deep_World]

Hi @MBobo55,

Thank you for the detailed update and for sharing everything you have observed over the past several months. I completely understand your concern, especially since the freezes began only after the BIOS updates and the system had been stable with earlier BIOS versions.

Based on the information you provided, it does appear that the issue has been consistently observed after the BIOS versions released in 2026, and I can understand why you suspect the BIOS may be contributing to the behaviour. However, we do not have visibility into HP's internal development timelines, so we are unable to provide a definitive date for when or if a BIOS update addressing this issue will be released.

To answer your primary concern :

Will using the power button to force shutdown twice a month damage the hardware?

In general, occasional forced shutdowns are unlikely to damage modern hardware components, including the SSD, processor, memory, or motherboard. Modern SSDs are designed to be resilient and can tolerate unexpected shutdowns. The greater risk is typically related to unsaved work being lost and Possible file system corruption if Windows is writing data at the moment of the freeze.

While repeated forced shutdowns are not ideal, experiencing one or two per month is not expected to physically damage the computer.

Regarding the troubleshooting steps:

• Running HP PC Hardware Diagnostics UEFI does not require installing Windows software.
• The diagnostics are built into the computer firmware and can be launched by tapping F2 during startup.
• Simply running the tests will not modify BIOS settings, Secure Boot settings, or passwords.
• Loading BIOS defaults is a separate action and is optional.

Since you mentioned:

• The freezes occur almost exclusively while using YouTube and the issue occurred in both Firefox and Edge and you have occasionally seen LiveKernel events and the mouse continues to move while the system becomes largely unresponsive.

It would be helpful to check whether any LiveKernelEvent or Display Driver errors appear in  Event Viewer immediately before the next freeze. This information can help determine whether the issue is related to BIOS, graphics, power management, or another system component.

I appreciate you bringing this feedback to the community. The detailed information you've shared is valuable.If you are able to gather any new Event Viewer entries, LiveKernelEvent details, or failure IDs from the HP Hardware Diagnostics, please share them with me and we'll be happy to review them further.

Regards

Deep_World

[MBobo55]

Hi @Deep_World  

Appreciate your replies. Yes, I am trying to give HP (thru You) as many details I can give thinking that perhaps this information can be helpful in fixing this issue once and for all. I see you agree, it is obvious HP knows something is wrong with this BIOS and that it has attempted to fix it, I hope they don't abandon this computer. Today marks the one year anniversary since I first booted it.

Short story. My favorite all time software is Sandboxie. I have been a SBIE user since 2008. And have had communication with all the developers of the software. There has been times when there is only one developer for the software and at other times there has been a team of developers. During a period when there was a team of developers, one developer that I had communication with told me that another developer that was working on a particular issue was requesting information particular to my computer that might help him solve the issue. Guess what happened? A few days later, I got a Thank you card from the wife of the developer that was working on the issue, thanking me for saving her husband a lot of time, by solving the issue in a lesser amount of time now he had more time to spend with his family.

I understand that maybe you don't have access to the engineers that work on the BIOS issues but perhaps if he or they read what I am writing here, that might click and gives them a clue on what needs to be done to solve this issue. 

A few more details. Live Kernel errors are not common in this computer. I probably had about 4, maybe 5 in the year since I started using this computer. And only twice a freeze has been preceded by one of this errors in Reliability Monitor. In this 2 occasions when I start the computer after the forced shutdown, and go to Reliability monitor, I found that a Live Kernel error had been logged about 40 minuter before the computer locked. The code in this errors was 1cc. As I understand it, this 2 particular Live Kernel error mean that the computer was able to recover and kept going.  This is why I am trying to see if I can catch one of this errors so I reboot and reset  whatever is messed up.

I had conversations with Google AI, he thinks the issue has to do with power management. I have updated all drivers suggested by HP Support assist, something that I would not have done if I did not have this issue. I read about every update before installing it and I believe that all of them have been succesful. This updates include the Graphic card (about 2 months ago).  Regarding driver updates from Microsoft, I install the ones that I can track and know exactly what is updating. So, most,  I hide and they will not install automatically because I have set my connection as Metered and keep Windows updates on Pause for most of the month.

I think this is an important detail. I probably spend about 4 or 5 hours a day in YouTube, almost always without issue. The issue happens twice a month. To be clear, every time I had a freeze/lock, I have been in YouTube. It has never happened while watching videos in a video player, navigating Windows explorer, or doing anything else.  This includes streaming sports games. Every day, I spend about 3 hours watching a game in the computer, no freezes. 

In Event viewer, there is never any message that gets logged at around the time of the lock or hours earlier. Event viewer has only the common warnings and errors that most people get. If there was something out of place, I would have spotted it. The only thing that gets logged is the critical error 41 that gets triggered by the hard shutdown. You mentioned Display Driver errors in your previous post. I never seen any Display Driver error in Event log or Reliability monitor.

You mentioned that HP PC Hardware Diagnostics UEFI does not need to be installed but perhaps is not in my computer. The only 2 suggestions from HP Support assist that I have not installed  include HP PC Hardware Diagnostics UEFI, but perhaps it is an update of the diagnostic tool and my computer does have the program installed. I watched some videos about the tool in YouTube, there were a few people asking how to Exit the tool. 

Thank you for your support

MBobo

[Deep_World]

Hi @MBobo55,
 

Thank you for taking the time to share such a detailed update and for providing additional observations about the issue. We appreciate your efforts in documenting the behaviour of the system, including the Live Kernel Error 1CC events, your update history, troubleshooting steps, and the pattern you've observed with YouTube usage. 

From your description, you've already performed extensive troubleshooting, kept drivers up to date, monitored Event Viewer and Reliability Monitor, and carefully tracked when the freezes occur. We understand how it can feel to experience a recurring issue.

Since the issue remains unresolved despite the troubleshooting, to get you the best assistance, we need to take this conversation to a private chat. We're inviting you to a private message to protect your privacy and ensure that any sensitive information remains confidential. 

To access your private message, just click the little blue envelope icon on the upper right corner of your HP Community profile, next to your profile name. Alternatively, you can click on this link. 

You can use this link as well: 

Private Messages - HP Support Community

We're looking forward to helping you resolve this issue! 

Stay tuned, and thanks for your patience! 

Regards,

Deep_World

[MBobo55]

@Deep_World Done. I replied to your PM. Thanks. I ll be waiting for your response. Greetings MBobo