Please help BIOS update Presario V3415

[gnemmi]

Hello Community:

A friend of mine gave me a really old notebook he had gathering dust in a closet and it turned out to be a Compaq Presario 3415LA in incredibly good shape!

The thing is that, apparently, somebody attempted an OS update or something along that way and ended up deleting the whole OS.

Long story short: I need to update the BIOS to the latest version but, as I came to learn, HP removed all the files for this particular notebook. And on top of that, I need to update the BIOS from a USB stick because there´s no OS installed on the machine  =(

What I was wondering is: would there be a place where I could find those old support files so I could create a bootable USB stick and update the BIOS from it?

Here´s the relevant info on the notebook:

Notebook Model: Presario V3000 (V3415LA)

Product Number: GM642LA#AC8

[Personal Information Removed]

System Board ID: 30B5

BIOS Version: F.37

Hope there is still hope ...

Thanks!

[Lil_Boy_Blue]

Hi

COMPAQ PRESARIO V3415LA NOTEBOOK PC

It is a retired product as you rightly say.

http://partsurfer.hp.com/Search.aspx?searchText=GM642LA

An OS that may work is...

https://lubuntu.net/downloads/   the alternate 32 bit system.

[gnemmi]

Thank you for your kind reply Lil_Boy_Blue!

That would certainly solve the "no OS" problem but would still leave me with a really outdated BIOS.

And actually, the biggest problem I´ve encounterd so far (this is why I made that "long story short" in my original post), is that for no apparent reason, If I stick a USB thumb drive with an OS ready to be installed on it, the system refuses to proceed to the "Select Boot Device" ... it just hangs in there ...

[Lil_Boy_Blue]

Hi

Can you change the sequence?  Obvious I know, but I had to ask.

[REO51ST]

@Lil_Boy_Blue

Did you FLAG the post with the SERIAL NUMBER???

When you see a SERIAL NUMBER do you flag it for the " MODERATORS "to remove???

REO

[gnemmi]

Sorry for the late reply ..

I sure did change the boot secuence so the BIOS gets to boot from the USB stick first but "that" is exactly where the system stalls ...

When I try to boot from the USB stick, the system stalls right here:

And when I reboot and press the ESC key so I can get to choose where to boot from, the system stalls right here:

Now, if I boot the system withoust any USB stick plugged in, I can get to the BIOS setup screen with no problem ...

Just in case, its worth mentionig that the very same USB stick boot without a problem on my other two test systems (Compaq Mini CQ10-120LA,  HP Mini 10).

Still .. the OS is not what worries me (I can manage to fix that). My real problem is the outdated BIOS =/

Hope that helps

[Lil_Boy_Blue]

Hi

Well I would also try a DVD.

It is possible that the system is not happy to boot from a USB.