Bios Upgrade on Pavilion dv8000t (2006) to replace HP F.08

[ooh_danno]

Hello anyone out there... desperate to updgrade my ancient HP Pavilion DV8000 laptop so I can pass it on to a student for school work. I guess by updating first the BIOS it will help me to introduce other updgrades (i.e., 32-64bits, newer OS and more rams) so it can be more useful for a learning student.  Currently, it has the original bios when it came out of the HP Facility back in the year 2006 when I ordered the system directly from Hewlett-Packard Online store.  Also, any suggestions to upgrade it from 32bits to 64bits, it will be much appreciated, too. Thank you our community. 

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

I believe this was the last BIOS release...

F.24   Oct 16,2007

ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp37001-37500/sp37159.exe

If my memory serves me correctly, there is no 64 bit audio driver for the audio your notebook has, so I would not update to a 64 bit OS.

Max memory is only 2 GB (1 x 1 GB).

[ooh_danno]

Hi Paul, thank you so very much for your help!!!

I am not very knowledgeable as far as upgrading especially dealing with the core system as well as operating system. Well, will my Pavilion dv8000 be able to absorb and/or use all the changes offered on F.24 Bios even though it has the earliest Bios version for my particular laptop PC? Will there be a chance that my laptop will stop running after I upgraded it to F.24? Does BIOS F.24 has all the cumulative changes upgrading the BIOS from the start? In other words, since I did not have the succeeding upgrades from F.09 through F.23, that it should not matter if I skip those, that my system will still be functioning properly after upgrading to F.24? Based on your knowledge, is it advisable to take advantage of all BIOS upgrades applicable to the system I have?  Which raises another question regarding my other HP Pavilion DV7 (Mid 2010) that had a Windows 7 originally but was accidentally upgraded to Windows 10 (64 bits)...  if it can benefit or use this BIOS F.24 upgrade, as well?  Again, thank you so much for this wonderful voluntary work you do to help others.  Very nice! Later, Paul. 

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

You're very welcome.

There really isn't much I can answer other than this...

The BIOS updates are cumulative.  So F.24 contains all the BIOS updates provided in all of the previous releases.

Since HP discontinued support for the model series as it is over 10 years old, there is no record of what any of the BIOS updates fixed or enhanced.

Updating the BIOS does have some risks.  It may work fine, and it may render the notebook inoperable.

It's not like a driver update, where if that goes wrong, the worse case scenario is you reinstall the operating system.

Most of the times of course, it works fine.

Just make sure the battery is fully charged and the PC connected to A/C power if you decide to update the BIOS.

My opinion is...if the notebook is working fine on the current BIOS, I would not take the chance on updating the BIOS--especially with the absence of any documentation that tells us what the BIOS updates fixed or enhanced.

The F.24 BIOS update is only good for the dv8000 model series.  It would not work on any other PC.

[ooh_danno]

Paul - Thank you so much! Want to let you know it worked. I was able to flash the old bios and loaded the new one you provided with success. The system restarted and it booted up properly so I considered it a SUCCESS. I appreciate your assistance.  -- Ooh_danno.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Anytime.

Glad to have been of assistance.