Occasional "Boot Error Not Found 3F0" and not waking from sleep

[Jason-_-H]

HP previously replaced a Kioxia SSD (Part # KBG40ZNV256G based on my hwinfo records) for my laptop when it would randomly wake from sleep inside my bag and essentially fail to boot back into windows, crash (supposedly), reboot, fail to reboot because it couldn't find a drive, throwing the 3F0 Error, and blasting fans at 100%, suffocating itself to death inside my bag. That was the situation, they ultimately decided it was an SSD issue (makes sense), replaced it with a refurbished SSD (with some ridiculous number of power on cycle counts, for the number of hours it was on, which itself is inaccurate). Went along, and used the laptop for ~6 months until ~March 2023 where the same issues occur again. 

We're now at ~March 2023. The Kioxia Drive has been replaced with a pre-used SK Hynix BC511, and the same issues are occurring again. On top of those same issues, when ~April 2023 comes rolling around, I run into another issue. That issue being the laptop failing to wake from sleep occasionally. The power light is on, but disk activity light is completely dark, no activity. So what do you do? You force the laptop to power off because it's never going to wake from sleep with the display. And you turn it back on. Nothing. Same situation. Power light is on, not drive activity light. 

So those are the two issues I'm now dealing with. From what I've heard, low-end HP consumer grade motherboards aren't exactly good, and someone else who has also used HP laptops had this to say:

I have owned 4 other consumer-grade HP machines and every single one post-2008 has had serious problems. The motherboard is usually the first to fail in some way, sometimes it will corrupt your stuff, and other times it will lose functionality like Bluetooth/wifi and touchscreen. Unfortunately this is more an issue with the brand, rather than the consumer.

I mean, seems reasonable at this point. 

Am I supposed to just believe that I somehow ended up with 2 faulty SSDs in a row in the same machine? Or am I supposed to believe that this is likely an issue with a faulty motherboard that HP just never fixed because it's far easier to just replace the SSD and call it a day and then when the issue inevitably occurs again 6 months down the road because the issue is NOT the SSD, just push the consumer to pay for warranty services so that they can actually use a laptop they purchased?

Does anyone has any suggestions?

I highly doubt it's Windows corrupting the drive unless Windows comes corrupted by default or something since the issue persists. And for whatever reason, the drive passes the diagnostic tests in the F2 menu, so probably not actually an issue with the drive despite it's 53,000+ power on cycle counts with 700 hours of power on time, which is entirely inaccurate since it was at 700 hours like 2 weeks ago?

At this rate, I'm either looking for suggestions that go beyond reset your system and hope that fixes it (which is what HP is still telling me to do), or confirmation that this is indeed very likely to be a motherboard issue. 

[Raj_05]

Hi @Jason-_-H,

Welcome to HP Support Community.  

Thank you for posting your query, I will be glad to help you.

The "Boot Error Not Found 3F0" message typically indicates that the computer is unable to find a bootable device, such as a hard drive or solid-state drive. This could be due to a number of reasons, including a loose connection, a failed hard drive, or an issue with the operating system.

To troubleshoot this issue, you can try the following steps.

• Check the connection between the hard drive and the motherboard to ensure that it is securely connected.
• Access the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) settings by pressing the appropriate key (usually F2 or Delete) during startup, and check if the hard drive is recognized by the system. If not, try resetting the BIOS settings to default.
• If the hard drive is recognized in the BIOS but the error still persists, try booting from a bootable USB or CD/DVD to determine if the issue is with the hard drive or the operating system.
• If the issue persists, try replacing the hard drive with a new one.

Regarding the issue with waking from sleep, this could be due to a variety of reasons as well. One common cause is outdated or incompatible drivers. You can try updating your drivers to see if that resolves the issue.

Another potential cause could be a power management setting that is preventing the computer from waking up properly. You can try adjusting the power settings in the control panel to see if that helps.

I hope this helps. 
 

Take care and have a good day.

Please click “Accepted Solution” if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution. Click the “Kudos/Thumbs Up" on the bottom right to say “Thanks” for helping!

Alden4
HP Support 

[Jason-_-H]

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@Raj_05 wrote:

Hi @Jason-_-H,

Welcome to HP Support Community.  

Thank you for posting your query, I will be glad to help you.

The "Boot Error Not Found 3F0" message typically indicates that the computer is unable to find a bootable device, such as a hard drive or solid-state drive. This could be due to a number of reasons, including a loose connection, a failed hard drive, or an issue with the operating system.

To troubleshoot this issue, you can try the following steps.

• Check the connection between the hard drive and the motherboard to ensure that it is securely connected.
• Access the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) settings by pressing the appropriate key (usually F2 or Delete) during startup, and check if the hard drive is recognized by the system. If not, try resetting the BIOS settings to default.
• If the hard drive is recognized in the BIOS but the error still persists, try booting from a bootable USB or CD/DVD to determine if the issue is with the hard drive or the operating system.
• If the issue persists, try replacing the hard drive with a new one.

Regarding the issue with waking from sleep, this could be due to a variety of reasons as well. One common cause is outdated or incompatible drivers. You can try updating your drivers to see if that resolves the issue.

Another potential cause could be a power management setting that is preventing the computer from waking up properly. You can try adjusting the power settings in the control panel to see if that helps.

I hope this helps. 
 

Take care and have a good day.

Please click “Accepted Solution” if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution. Click the “Kudos/Thumbs Up" on the bottom right to say “Thanks” for helping!

Alden4
HP Support 

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I'll open it myself and check if the drive is seated properly if I could get sent some of the rubber feet for the laptop. I have no intention of opening it unless I have those rubber feet (which I can't even find online), or until I probably buy a macbook and just decide to extract whatever I can from this laptop. 

"Access the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) settings by pressing the appropriate key (usually F2 or Delete) during startup, and check if the hard drive is recognized by the system. If not, try resetting the BIOS settings to default."

Well, if the laptop boots then yes the BIOS does finds the drive. Window's OS Boot Manager is the first option on the Boot Order list. But if it shows the boot drive not found error, then no, the BIOS doesn't find the drive, hence the error. 

The issue with sleep might've just been a power plan issue, but it doesn't seem to be happening anymore. But either way, that's probably the smaller of the two issues, though they both combine to create a relatively difficult to use laptop.

Sleep->No Wake->Force Shutdown and Reboot->Drive not Found, then I'm stuck powering off and on to hope it just works. That's not usually the case, but it did happen once. I did have to turn it off and on about 7 or 8 times, then it worked. Before crashing with critical process died, which is very generic, but Windows refuses to generate a mem dump, so not much there.