Looking for DV6000 BIOS update

[Gordon-T]

Hello there!  Just made an account.  What a healthy community for ageing laptops!  Truly a gem here folks.

I'm looking to see if there are any newer BIOS versions for this old laptop.  HP Pavillion dv6700, model number dv6948ca.  I'm having trouble getting it to recognize the full 4GB of RAM that was just installed.  Windows 7 (32) system info box says 4.0 GB installed, but 2.99 GB physical accessible.  

Anyone know why that would be the case?  Are there settings one can tweak?  I've googled the daylights out of the problem and so far nothing's worked. 

Here's what I've tried:

BIOS--> memory test: all passed, it can see all 4 GB

msconfig --> Boot -- > fiddle with Max RAM , checked/unchecked changes nothing

BIOS --> F.58 is all I can find out there on HP support, and that's what I've currently got (Jul 8, 2008)

Would installing Win 7 64-bit change anything?  I was poking around other threads on this forum and saw that @Paul_Tikkanen  was helping everyone left and right.  Mr. Tikkanen would you happen to have any miracles up your sleeve?

Huge thanks in advance,

Gordon

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi, Gordon:

4.0 GB installed, but 2.99 GB is not an unreasonable number.

Most of that missing 1 GB of system memory has gone to support the graphics adapter's shared system memory.

Installing Windows 7 64 bit would probably not make a difference.

I doubt a BIOS update would make any difference either.

The BIOS updates were written to be run on Windows Vista.

Some folks have had success updating the BIOS in the Intel models like yours but in the AMD models updating the BIOS using an unsupported operating system result in the kiss of death...a bricked notebook.

If you want to take a chance, this reputable 3rd party website has the BIOS update HP released for your notebook...

F.58

HP Pavilion dv6948ca BIOS (driverscollection.com)

Cheers,

Paul

[TzortzisG]

 Hi Gordon.

I completely agree with you on your comments about Paul_Tikkanen EXPERT Level 21.

Concerning your RAM issue, you need to upgrade yourself to Win64, either windows 7 or windows 10. What you're dealing with is the 3GB barrier, and although there are some tweaks for it, the best way to resolve it (and upgrade your laptop at the same time) is to go 64bit. This old (2009) article will explain things: Windows 7: 64-bit or 32-bit? Since your CPU is an Intel Core 2 Duo, it has the necessary 64bit computing ability. This is 2023, and one should be running a 32bit operating system ONLY if he has to (32bit processor).....