Serial number points to wrong machine.

[JonDJones]

I have an old 15-ab188ca.  It has crashed badly, and I need to reload the BIOS.  To get the BIOS file, the website is making me enter my serial number.  When I do that, it tells me it's for a HP P4G1i14 U5 225U 14 16GB/512 PC (CD6C0ET) and not my laptop.  I double and triple checked the S/N on the bottom of the laptop, it's fully legible and I have typed it in correctly.  How do I get the BIOS file I need to fix my laptop?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

The problem you have is that the model series has been retired, and some PC serial numbers repeat themselves every 10 years based on the year and week of manufacture, since HP only uses 1 digit (0-9) for the year of manufacture.

If you enter your PC's serial number in the search window at the link below, it will give you a choice of what PC to enter and you would be able to find your PC that way.

HP PartSurfer

But the problem you have that I assume is an 'ACPI BIOS' error, which affected hundreds of different model HP AMD notebooks with that processor and chipset series, cannot be solved with a BIOS update or recovery.

Go into the BIOS>security menu (I believe), find the TPM setting and hide the TPM device.

Save the settings, exit and your PC should be running again.

If you want the latest BIOS update that HP released for your PC, let me know.

Updating the BIOS will not allow you to unhide the TPM device or the error will reappear.