Hi,
after my HD died, I had to install Windows 8.1 from scratch (from a Microsoft ISO) on a new HD, and then went to the HP support site to get the missing drivers.
There were present too many different version of them, and because I wasn't sure what were those missing, I installes the "HP Support Assistant".
It found only 3 missing drivers, for sound, ethernet, chipset, and nothing more.
Then I installed the "HP Phoenix Control" software that should be able to change the color of the frontal LED in the case, but the LED is always RED and never changes color (or even shut down).
For 3 years I used the PC without even know about that pre-installed software, so I can't confirm it was working before, of if it was just broken by "Design".
I read a lot of topics about the same issue with my model in these forums, but all all of them where missing crucial information about the actual state of the software/hardware, so I'll try to be the most clear as possible here.
The important thing that I understood, is that the LED control is related to the BIOS, and this is the INTERESTING part that I found out.
While looking for firmware in the HP site, I seen that there were two BIOS listed for my model:
1) "80.13 Rev.A" with the description "(ROM Family 2B36)" (sp71809.exe)
2) "A0.08 Rev.A" with the description "(ROM Family 2B3A)" (sp87010.exe)
BUT, looking at the "HP Support Assistant" information panel, I have this situation:
System board = 2B36 2.0
System BIOS = A0.08
Can you see that ?
Either I have the wrong BIOS for my board, or the information on the site are inverted !!
Considering that I never installed drivers or BIOSes by hand, it must have been the "HP Support Assistant" that did the job.
In the end the considerations are:
- Could it be that all the people with my same model (HP Phoenix 850-001nl) complaining about the not working LED changing colors, had my same wrong (??) BIOS ?
- Could lead to any issue to try installing the other one "80.13 Rev.A" ? Or maybe there's the risk of a not booting PC because incompatibilities with the one already there ?
- Do you know if there was some kind of reason why the "HP Support Software" could have decided to install that BIOS instead of the other one ? Maybe incompatibilities with some more recent Windows versions or so...
Thank you
