m9400f MCP61PM-HM (nettle3) motherboard bios update

[stormseye]

I would like to update the bios on my m9400f desktop pc from 5.17 to the latest version (5.29?).  The motherboard is MCP61PM-HM (Nettle3).

When I go to the support page for the m9400f (here) , it shows a 5.29 bios update for the M2P61PM-HM motherboard even though there is no indication that the m9400f actually ever used such a m/b.  There is no bios update shown for the MCP61PM-HM which I have.

Naturally, I am very concerned about trying to flash the bios with the wrong firmware.  That could be catastrophic.

Does anyone have any words of wisdom about how to proceed?

Many thanks.

[Big_Dave]

Hi,

If you look under VISTA for bios upgrades you will see 5.17 and 5.29 listed  for the MC2__ motherboard.

I can't say that the 5.29 will work or not work.  Generally the bios checking code is pretty good at determining if the bios is right for the motherboard.

A very good HP person to contact is sumsolstice. Send him a PM and ask the question.

[Big_Dave]

Hi,

I found this 5.27 bios update for your motherboard.:smileyhappy:

The installer is VISTA dependent so hopefully you are running VISTA.

[stormseye]

Wow, that was fast, BD, and many thanks.

I may go with the 5.27 upgrade you pointed me to.

I am still curious why hp shows the 5.29 bios upgrade for the M2P61PM-HM m/b when that m/b doesn't appear to be one of the 2 m/b's ever used in the m9400f.

If possible and safe, I would like to be able to use the 5.29 upgrade as it may solve a windows sleep/wake problem I sometimes encounter.  Naturally, though, I don't want to trash my computer.

Upon your previous advice, I was writing a note to sumsolstice when your latest post arrived.  I think I will still do that.

Thanks again.

[Big_Dave]

HI,

You are having wakeup and sleep problems? Video drivers can also be problematic with sleep and wakeup issues.  If you have the NVIDIA video processor than try a video update from the NVIDIA web site.

[stormseye]

Like me, occasionally my vista64 computer doesn't ike to wake up quickly.  The tower box lights will come on (blue) and I can hear the HD and DVD drives ramping up, but after a couple of seconds it all seems to go back to sleep (orange lights, drives go off), and then that cycle repeats a couple of seconds later.  That cycle can repeat a half dozen times or more before really waking up and turning on the monitor.

Once that cycle starts happening, it usually does it whenever I bring the pc out of sleep.  This cycle can be temporarily fixed by rebooting;  often, several reboots are necessary.  Once the cycle is broken, the pc usually works normally for many days until the next time it decides to act up.

I'm not sure what the cause is.  It may be a HD or DVD drive spinup timing issue but I seem to recall this happening with a previous HD drive in this machine.  Not sure.  It may have some relationship with new software installs or Windows updates, but I'm not sure about that either.

So, this is the main reason I want to try the bios upgrade.  Worth a try, don't you think?  ...as long as I don't trash the pc.

btw, I don't use a HP Personal Media Drive and I don't have any "missing video" issues coming out of sleep, so I'd like to use the 5.29 upgrade rather than the 5.27 if at all possible.  Also, btw, although the m9400f *may* have a nVidia gpu on the m/b as part of the nVidia chipset, it is not used and is interestingly not accessible outside the box;  the pc comes with an ATI Radeon 3650 card installed and that is what is being used.

[Hanspuppa]

Hello stormseye, Here  is the link for the BIOS  5.29 update for your system. It does list fixes for the sleep issue.

The reason you cannot access the onboard video device is that when an addon video card is installed, the onboard video device is disabled.

[stormseye]

Thanks, hanspuppa.  That link for the 5.29 bios update is the same as the link in my original post.  It says that the update is for the M2P61PM-HM m/b only, but my m9400f pc has the MCP61PM-HM m/b.  This is why I started this topic.

I need advice regarding the wisdom of trying to apply that bios update to my particular m/b.  Making a mistake could be a disaster.

What is puzzling to me, is that the Product Specifications indicate:  "Motherboard name: Narra3-GL8E or Nettle3-GL8E".  Those correspond to M2N68-LA (Narra3) and MCP61PM-HM (Nettle3).  The product specs do not mention a M2 P61PM-HM m/b except in the bios update info.

[Big_Dave]

stormseye,

Wait for sumsolstice to respond. He's a bit busy these days.

[stormseye · Accepted solution]

With generous and helpful assistance from sumsolstice, it was determined that the 5.29 bios update should work with my MCP61PM-HM (nettle3) motherboard.

On Friday evening, I flashed the bios with the 5.29 update (sp44500.exe) and, although it's been less than 2 days, that seems to be working okay.  I'm not sure yet if that bios update has solved the sleep/wake problem I was having.  I'll know more conclusively as the days and weeks go by.

For those of you who might be comtemplating this update, I am noticing a slightly different sleep sequence with the 5.29.  I have 2 HD drives and a DVD drive in the m9400f pc.  With the 5.17 bios, when the pc went into sleep, all of the drives were turned off relatively simultaneously.  With the 5.29 bios, now the DVD drive and one of the HD drives are turned off as before, but the second HD drive does not shut down until 5-10 seconds later (listening to the click of the HD heads parking).  It's not really a problem, just a bit of an oddity.  I'm not sure which of the 2 HD drives is shut down last; I'm not curious enough to open the pc case to find out since it doesn't seem to be affecting anything.

Many thanks to all of you who took an interest in this forum posting and helped steer me through this:  Big_Dave, Hanspuppa, and especially sumsolstice.

Jerry