HP Spectre X2 BIOS Update Failure

[Flower_Bud]

@LeeTVR @SpaceGhostTN

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[Whizkid2310]

Its been a few months since I started this thread, but I’m “pleased” to say my x2 developed a fault resulting in it losing power intermittently. I returned to the retailer where I had an extended warranty and it was dutifully returned to their repair agent.

I got a call Friday advising they are unable to repair it and they offered me a full refund. I’ve taken it!

I’ve ordered a new PC today but unfortunately for HP, after this debacle it’s not one of theirs.

Good luck to all remaining x2 owners. I’ve loved the device but its reliability was always a bit hit and miss.

[12326]

It shows that "this BIOS upadate is not compatible with this device" how i can upadate this BIOS

[earlystock]

I have given up. I have bitten the bullet and prurchased 10 Lenova yoga 920's for my business, I can not believe how poor HP customer support is on this. Either HP know what they have done and are ignoring it, in the hope that the X2 owners will give up( which in my opinion is dishonest) or they simply do not have the capability to fix it.

Either way not a company that I want to do business with

  I am also scrapping all our HP printers and  servers when they are financially written off (I have spent in excess of $25k replacing the HP kit so far, though to be fair I would have been spending this money anyway).

Sad really, 

[Zig81]

I pulled my laptop out at a client's and found that it was dead. Again. Either I hit the power button while transporting it or forgot to hold it down for nine seconds to turn it off. So I went through this forum again looking for updates. When I saw this post, I opened up the HP Support utility on my tablet. It took some hunting but there was the bios update waiting for me in my product page. 

And after running it, just like you did, I had the same failures, just like you did, and I tried all the alternative installs, just like you did. And again, this is an update for the Spectre X2. That was designed to work with the Spectre X2 hardware. And listed by the manufacturer on that product's support page.

It looks like F29 is here to stay.

[SpaceGhostTN]

I've been following this for a while.  I was able to get  F.31 Rev.A to flash from recovery.  It was either that I drained the batter or held down left and right arrow while holding power until the power light cycled.  Maybe both.  Regardless, after I did that, I could flash from recovery (Windows + B during cold boot).

Good new is that F.31 Rev.A flashed succesfully and is is verified.

Good news is that it also flashed the TPM fix.

Bad news is that the device still does not shut down withouth holding the power button for 3-5 seconds after Windows shutdown.

Bad news is that IMEI will not flash in spite of having the most current BIOS.  I still receive the error "The System ME firmware update not initiated due tointegrity failure or invalid FW image ."        

HP Support: Would this meant that the failure to shutdown completely is a function of MEI?

[LeeTVR]

In response to SpaceGhostTN post, I still haven't managed to get a response from HP UK in regards to the effects of the Intel update on the MEI? My suspicion is that the Intel chipset (microcode) has been broken by the Intel updates to the point where the machine no longer recognises its own MEI code, so it can't be reflashed. Whether this can be done through a BIOS update I am not sure, but it looks from what is happening that this may be a red herring?

Why oh why can't HP put us out of our misery and either say they are still working on this (something useful in the release notes might help) or that they have broken our machines and can't fix them. Releasing periodic updates which do nothing is just a tease we can do without and if a true fix is not on the agenda, it would only be common decency to let us know.

I can't believe with this backlog of cases that they haven't traced this issue yet?

I suppose some might say that the power off fault can be worked around, but I often forget and the machine is dead the next time I go to use it in anger. It also can't be doing the battery any good being run to flat on a regular basis?

Because of this I have a £1000 PC sat  being unused while I am using an old Samsing Core Duo T610 as a portable.

[LeeTVR]

I have a follow up...

Just found an interesting thread from a site that seems to specialise in fixing ME and BIOS issues.

There's a post here that describes exactly our problem and gives a solution. It is very convoluted and potentially dangerous, but reading the articles it does describe what probably has gone wrong.

It appears that part of the BIOS is corrupt hence why the ME doesn't work, but the regular BIOS can no long overwrite it because the area has been locked. If there is a way of unlocking the flash descriptor, this area of the BIOS can be updated and fixed.

This is probably why the BIOS updates fail too as perhaps they are trying to overwrite a locked area?

https://www.win-raid.com/t3955f39-Unable-to-update-Intel-ME-on-HP-Spectre-X-after-previous-BIOS-upda...

[lgurbuz72]

SAME PROBLEM HERE  I DO EXACTLY THE SAME THING

[enoonmai]

Hi maybe a little late. i have had this for awhile, my spectre just kept crashing, even though this is a bios issue with Hp spectre models, it is direct relation to windows 10, you will find if you go back a few  upgrades  of windows 10. That is if you eventually get it to boot and stay booted., which eventually you will.

stop  superfetch running and then disable prefetch type 0 in the prefetch modify. Go into Prefetch and delete everything leave ReadyBoot folder. Make all files in Prefetch Folders Read only.

go back into prefetch ReadyBoot delete ReadyBoot.etl  and make your own read only ReadyBoot.etl  just with notepad, mine simply says "HP has No Idea What they are doing anymore" but really it doesnt matter what is in it.

Reboot.

check that they are all still read only, The Prefetch will still populate but the thing is the ReadyBoot.etl wont get altered.

This may not help in all cases and sometimes will still crash but will be better, 

Go in and chek your event viewer at the times of crashes and if  this is related to the Critical Kernel 41 cat 63 boot problems then this will be your current fix untill if ever the BIOS for these models get  fixed and we can use up todate windows 10

It has cost me a fortune, replaced motherboards, tech support, geeks looking at it, no one got it right.

Except a Japanese Geek  on the web who obviously got sick of throwing money at it.