HP Pavillion DV 6 – 3137ed won't start up properly

[Dave1047]

Hello,

After an HD crash of my old HP DV6 and exchange of the HD for a new one, I had to re-install W7 x64. As the laptop was supplied without recovery CD’s, I had to install a generic (non HP) W7. I also found the relevant drivers (especially graphics!) on the HP support site. Furthermore I updated the Bios to the latest HP F29 version.

Although the laptop has been acting strange in the past, it now went out of control completely. In 90% of all start up attempts the display remains completely black.  Although it is obviously impossible to see what exactly is happening, it does not seem to completely boot up. It is also not possible to enter the BIOS screen by pressing Esc. During start up. The screen stays completely black. Sometimes – when I’m lucky – the screen turns completely white after startup and sometimes – this needs even more luck – W7 starts and everything is fine.

Altogether I have the impression that something is wrong with the graphic drivers. The DV7 has the ATI Radeon HD 4250 and  HD 5500 both at the HP ATI Driver 8.712.1.2000. In the past I have seen quite some problems with this system. If something is wrong it looks as if the systems keep “switching” and this draws a lot of power. The fan keeps howling at max. speed and the laptop won’t even run on the battery.

What could be wrong? How is the graphic system operating during start up and why can’t I see the Bios set up directly after start up?

Kind regards,

Dave
The Netherlands

[WAWood]

@Dave1047 

You have something known as Switchable Graphics -- involving two different video chips -- and that is a serious problem that requires the HP drivers to function properly.  And yes, reinstalling the HP drivers SHOULD have fixed that, but from your comments, it clearly did not.

Did you start by reinstalling the chipset drivers?  If not, that could be the issue.

You can try using Windows images downloaded using the tool from this site:

https://www.heidoc.net/joomla/technology-science/microsoft/67-microsoft-windows-iso-download-tool

Click the Download: Windows-ISo-Download.exe link. This will download that file to your PC. Double-click that file to run it.

Download the tool, run it, and do the following:
1) Select Windows 7 at the upper right
2) Under Select edition, select SP1 OEM -- this is the same as the HP OEM edition
3) Click the Confirm button
4) Select the product language, click confirm button
6) Select either the 64-bit or 32-bit download
7) Select a folder to save the file -- it's downloading 4GB or so of data, so that will take a while depending on the download speed. The progress bar might not show any progress but when the download is nearly done, a window will pop open indicating the ISO file is being moved from a temporary download directory to the folder you selected. The screen will then say Download Complete.

Once you have this, you have a choice of media to create:
1) If you can boot from CD, download and install ImgBurn and use the Write Image to Disk option to create a bootable DVD.
2) If you can boot from USB, download and install RUFUS and use the option to create a bootable USB stick from the ISO file.

[Dave1047]

Hello WaWood,

Thank you for your detailed message regarding my good old DV6. I tried to download the ISO as you described but unfortunately it was temporarily unavailable on the site. I downloaded a standard W7 x64 instead and installed it with Rufus on an USB Stick. However no result and no action on the screen whatsoever. It remains unclear whether the system is booting up at all, but my impression is that it “hangs” somewhere halve way down the road as there is some activity visible at the indicator lights on the keyboard. The only thing that I can notice is some activity at the hard disk station and the DVD drive. I also can hear no beeps at all, but I’m not sure if the DV7 offers such beeps at booting. Entering the Bios / Boot set-up with <Esc> or F9 also does not offer any visible results.

Although I’m afraid that I finally have to do with a real hardware issue ( a blown up on board graphical processor) I intend to do some more trials. As soon as I find some more time I will take out the hard disk thus forcing the system to boot from the USB with the clean W7 on it. I already exchanged the Bios battery, also with no result. Although the DV6 is not intended for any practical use, it just feels as a fight, that I want to win. I will keep you informed.

Kind regards,

Dave