Network BIOS updated failing on ProBook 465 G11

[tcrass]

Hi,

on my recently purchased ProBook 465 G11, I selected the Network BIOS update feature from the BIOS settings. The updater told me that I am currently on 01.02.00, but there was a an important *Rollback* version 01.01.03 available. I accepted, and after a number of progress bars, blank screens and reboots I was surprised to find my current BIOS version still being 01.02.00. I re-tried the procedure several times, but the only difference from the first attemt was that the update now appeared to proceed much faster -- iff it actually happened at all, which I doubt, since I'm still stuck with 01.02.00.

So... Am I doing something wrong, or is there a problem with the Network updater?

If I understand the product support page correctly, there's now actually version 01.01.04 available for my ProBook. Is there *any* way to extract the actual .bin file from the provided .exe and to update using e.g. a usb drive?

Cheers -- tcrass

[BeemerBiker]

Do not attempt any bios updates at this time

Reference The thread is here

[tcrass]

Thanks for the link to the other thread -- although in the meantime I already managed to install version 01.01.04 from a USB drive using some obscure, unsupported method. Basically, I ran the self-extracting sp153442.exe using wine and put the extracted W78_01010400.bin into /DEVFW and /HP/DEVFW on the USB stick, once as-is and once renamed to Firmware.BIN. Dunno which one exactly was picked up, but the firmware got successfully installed after I chose "Update System and Supported Device Firmware Using Local Media".

I subsequently went back to the Network Updater, which told me that it was important to rollback to 01.01.03 -- which I did. Then the Network Updater urged me to rollback to 01.01.01 -- which I did. And now it's getting hilarious: Now the updater told me that I really should upgrade to 01.01.03 -- which I did. And, guess what -- the updater's next strong advice was to rollback to 01.01.01.

So it seems I'm stuck in a 01.01.01 <-> 01.01.03 cycle.

[BeemerBiker]

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@tcrass wrote:

Hi,

on my recently purchased ProBook 465 G11, I selected the Network BIOS update feature from the BIOS settings. The updater told me that I am currently on 01.02.00, but there was a an important *Rollback* version 01.01.03 available. I accepted, and after a number of progress bars, blank screens and reboots I was surprised to find my current BIOS version still being 01.02.00.

---

I would not have expected anything like a rollback request.  That is unusual.  However, looking at the revision history here I noticed that your bios version 1.02 is not listed so it must have had a problem just like the 1.05 that is now missing

All the listed BIOS seem to actually fix or enhance the laptop.  Many times all i see are security fixes which generally slow down the pc.  You probably should upgrade to 1.04

Since you are using linux, you will need to pick the USB BOOT option after you download the 1.04

Or you could hold off until the 1.05 is fixed and then wait a few weeks to see if there are any complaints about the new 1.05  This assumes HP releases 1.05

[tcrass]

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@BeemerBiker wrote:

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@tcrass wrote:

Hi,

on my recently purchased ProBook 465 G11, I selected the Network BIOS update feature from the BIOS settings. The updater told me that I am currently on 01.02.00, but there was a an important *Rollback* version 01.01.03 available. I accepted, and after a number of progress bars, blank screens and reboots I was surprised to find my current BIOS version still being 01.02.00.

---

I would not have expected anything like a rollback request.  That is unusual.  However, looking at the revision history here I noticed that your bios version 1.02 is not listed so it must have had a problem just like the 1.05 that is now missing

All the listed BIOS seem to actually fix or enhance the laptop.  Many times all i see are security fixes which generally slow down the pc.  You probably should upgrade to 1.04

Since you are using linux, you will need to pick the USB BOOT option after you download the 1.04

Or you could hold off until the 1.05 is fixed and then wait a few weeks to see if there are any complaints about the new 1.05  This assumes HP releases 1.05

---

Regarding BIOS version numbers: please note that my initial BIOS was 01.02.00, while all other versions were 01.01.0x. But true, 01.01.02 was missing from the rollback sequence suggested by the Network Updater.

I'll re-install 01.01.04 using the method I describe above -- since we are a completely Windows-free household, I don't think I'll be able to create a bootable USB stick using the official way until I one day may get my hands on some Windows PC. (Or maybe the software for creating a bootable USB stick is capable on running on wine? Maybe I'll give that a try...)

BTW, the initial reason why I cared about BIOS versions was that Linxu would consistently crash and restart quite early during the boot process once the open-source amdgpu driver kicks in (tried that with three different Linux distributions). I filed an issue about that at https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/3995, and the AMD guy who does quite a bit of work on that driver was asking me if my BIOS was up to date.

Cheers -- tcrass