Need to downgrade bios

[tomstar]

Hi. I want to downgrade my bios to an earlier version to troubleshoot something. I'm not looking to restore it but to replace it with an older version.

I downloaded the older bios appropriate for my laptop model that I want to use and I created a USB tool so this way the bios can be updated from the USB flash drive.

The instructions say to turn off power to laptop, put USB in, hold the windows key and B at same time, hold power button 2-3 seconds and release while still holding windows key and B.

I do that but nothing happens - the screen stays blank. I did it for 3 minutes and nothing happens.

I'm wondering if I'm missing something.

For example do I need before I do all this to set the boot order in bios to go to the usb first?

The instructions I read on the HP site don't mentioning doing that first.

Thanks for any assistance.

[CherylG]

No, nothing is done with boot order since you are not booting from the usb. The usb is read during the process. I have seen some report having to hold the power button for 5 seconds and the Win + B for at least 10-15 seconds more.  Some machines never show anything on screen-only sign of activity is the light on usb drive flashing as it is being read. 

Have you tried F2 at power on to enter System Diagnostics? There should be a BIOS or Firmware category in there that offers BIOS rollback. Immediately after powering on start tapping the Esc key. This will open a menu where F2 System Diagnostics is an option. Tap F2 key and look for the category.

[tomstar]

Hi Cherylg.

I tried it again with the USB drive a few times and no screen pops up and nothing gets installed.

I tried the esc/F2/System diagnostics/Firmware and it had no rollback bios (maybe because when I tried the usb drive thing one time it reinstalled the bios).

It does have something else that allows you to select the bios from your computer hard drive.

Do you think if I put the bios file on my desktop and then navigated to it through system disagnostics it will install?

[CherylG]

Have you checked your BIOS version to be sure the usb didn't downgrade it?

You can try putting it on hard drive and using F2- but I have no knowledge of that process so you are doing it at your own risk.

[tomstar]

Yes I have the speecy tool that tells me what the bios is. I've also tried this many times and have gone into the bios to take a look and it doesn't change.

I guess I'll have to research this more.

[CherylG]

HP locks some versions of BIOS- once it is installed it can not be downgraded. You might look through the details of previous versions to see if any mention it.

[tomstar]

It's the latest bios with the spectre fix. I guess is ever there was a bios they don't want touched it might be that one. I'm going to check that out. I wonder if there is a work around if so.

I've also read of a few people that experienced what i have in the past on the forum.. nothing comes up when they do the usb flash drive etc - it just kind of hangs in a black space. I guess it could also be they have a bios that is undowngradable.

Maybe there is something wrong with the flash drive. I'll try a differnt one. Anyway, I'll research some more - thanks.

[CherylG]

One other thing to try on the flash drive. Format it Fat32. Then run the BIOS file to create the BIOS flash. It may not make any difference when using the BIOS exe but when creating a BIOS recovery drive manually it is required to format it Fat32.

[tomstar]

I thought that is what I was doing when I did it but I'll take a closer look. It creates like an HP tools drive and it you look in it it has an hp folder and inside that is bios stuff.

Actually, my F38 bios is from windows 10. I  was having some problems with it and tried a repair install in Win 10 and didn't seem to help so instead of a clean install i decided to go back to Windows 8.1 using recovery usb. (I had tried a clean install of windows 10 a long time ago and there was lots of problems with drivers - upgrading it worked very well)

For some reason I thought it would put back original bios of 8.1 but it still has f38 of win 10 which has the spectre fix.

Anyway, my plan is to upgrade back up to windows 10. I had also tried downgrading the bios there but it didn't work. Maybe it is locked.

[tomstar]

Sorry I'm a little confused. It is bios f38. It fixes the spectre problem. Doesn't mention anything about it being locked.

I guess maybe they would not want to lock that one in case there is problems with it but anyway I'll look into more.