Pavilion zv5000 BIOS

[JBrush]

After several years of not being turned on, I charged the battery and turned on my old Pavilion zv5000 notebook.  I was notified that the clock wasn't set, so I entered BIOS to set the clock.  

The notebook started and all seemed OK.  So far so good.  But then I noticed the notebook was running very (and I do mean very) slow.  The notebook was slow, but never this slow.  

I went back into BIOS and noticed that the BIOS was very simple, a bit too simple.  For example there was information available for the hard drive.   I returned the BIOS to its default settings, but that didn't help.

So where is my old BIOS?  I'm thinking there are settings in the BIOS that are responsible for the notebook running so slow.  Does anybody know how I can get back my old BIOS?

. . . JBrush

[Huffer]

This is so old there is not much information still here at the HP website. I did used to have one of these many many years ago. Mine was the AMD version. I do recall the BIOS being pretty limited. What kind of information are you looking for about the hard drive? 

[JBrush]

Maybe my memory is failing me, but I thought the BIOS was more involved, containing a lot more information.

I'm not looking for anything about the hard drive.  I just thougt it was odd that no information about the hard drive was available.  

I've never had the battery get so low where the CMOS battery went dead.  I was wondering if by doing so the BIOS got screwed up.

My real concern is that the notebook is running extremely slow.  I don't remember the notebook being so slow before the CMOS battery went dead.

[Huffer]

I collect and refurbish vintage laptops (this one is not close to vintage yet, just old) so I can definitely confirm the CMOS battery only lasts maybe 5 to 7 years and then the BIOS will not hold settings. It does not screw up the BIOS except the time and other adjustable settings will not hold. If I recall that laptop uses old school IDE/PATA drives so there really aren't any settings to be changed around. Old hard drives do have a tendency to go bad just sitting on the shelf. Is it just slow on the internet or very slow to boot up or both? After all most of these had 512 megs RAM and I think they max at 2 gigs of DDR first gen memory. 

[JBrush]

I'm almost sure the BIOS before the CMOS battery went dead was different.  Again, I'm almost sure there was an option under the Advanced tab that let me set the CPU multiplier.  I saw a video on YouTube where pressing Ctl-F10 and then Ctl-F11 during bootup  brought up a BIOS with an Advance tab that contained this CPU multiplier option.  I've tried that trick on my notebook without success.

My current processor speed is 1600 MHz with 1280 MB of system memory.

[Huffer]

You dreamed it. HP consumer laptops have never, that I have seen in 20 years, had an adjustment for the CPU multiplier. I believe 1600 mhz is the correct speed and you apparently have a 1 gig memory module and a 256 meg. 

[JBrush]

I just discovered that the rated speed for this laptop is 2.4 GHz.  So tell me why the BIOS is showing only 1.6 GHz?  

[JBrush]

A few last comments.  This computer is not worth my time in getting it to work.  Something changed, and I think it has something to do with the BIOS.  This computer has an AMD Athlon XP Processor 3000+ and should be running faster than 1.6 GHz.  From what I can Google, this BIOS has a hidden sub-menu that has a CPU clocking parameter, but I haven't found a way to access it.

Thanks for taking the time to listen to me.

. . . John

[JBrush]

One last last comment.  After more research, I stand corrected.  The speed of my laptop is 1.6 GHz with an AMD Athlon-XP-M processor.  Talk about confusing information available on the Internet.  I'm done.