HP Envy x360 Ryzen F19 BIOS disaster DO NOT UPDATE

[xxalazin]

Looks to me that all HP did was update the f17 to f20 so it could overite the  f19 bios.....

[gsoul5005]

instead of updating the GPU drivers they reverted the BIOS..

[Hammerfest]

As others have said, the fix is to UPDATE THE DRIVERS FOR THE GPU, instead they went NUCLEAR and DOWNGRADED the BIOS completely and just slaped F.20 on it!

So, with that said!

CAUTION: DO NOT UPDATE TO F.20!!! (unless you hate common sense, even if it is HP's fault)

F.20 DOWNGRADES the VRAM amount from 1GB to 256MB (causing crashing among other things in Chrome, hardware accelerated playback of video files to only show green screen, and random lock up's when using anything that uses GPU acceleration)

I am still checking the AGESA, but I am almost sure it is ALSO DOWNGRADED!

Now, for those of you with F.19 and having severe issues, you are going to have 3 options (if you havent already done them):

1: DOWNGRADE (er upgrade to F.20) and realize that HP isn't planning on updating the drivers (last I was told talking to a manager) and you wont get important microcode (AGESA) fix's or the ability to play games/use programs that arent dyanmic VRAM friendly with the 256MB VRAM buffer

2: Attempt to upgrade your drivers for the GPU using the forced install method, at least until AMD launch's official drivers next month (we hope and they claim), this doesnt always work and #3 might be required

3: Do a total reinstall of windows and then use the force install method of the AMD drivers (NOT FROM HP WHICH ARE FROM MID 2017!!!).

I have helped a few people already, and while not crash free (it is an HP afterall), as it wasnt before, it sure as heck isnt crash happy as F.19 with MID 2017 GPU DRIVERS, or F.17 or lower with MID 2017 GPU DRIVERS!

SIDE NOTE: I am making this note as there seems to be quite a bit of confusion on the BIOS version, sadly, as I have reported both early 2018 and recently (to "case manager's" even), they keep posting firmware for different model's on the same page... the 2017 Envy x360 with Ryzen Mobile had TWO variants, one with a lower revision BIOS and one with the higher end (mine came in january with F.13 IIRC), and NO, they are not cross flashable, and no, the 3rd BIOS file you are seeing there is NOT for the 2017 Envy x360... we will see if they get that removed (it took them a few months to remove the wrong one back in FEB of 2018 as well...)

[Anonymous]

 

MADE AN ACCOUNT JUST FOR THIS!!! 

AMD has announced we will get official and driver support from their side..  if HP doesn't release the updated bios before then... I don't even know what they are trying to do. Do they even care for our display drivers which are YEARS old... Still running on a 2017 makeover.

[edit]

 So my "rant" got removed... Maybe next time stop screening at other's comments and do something about it..maybe reply to us HP users that you are looking into this...

Support 10/10

[xxalazin]

What did you expect from HP? a half rate company thats supposed to supply oem drivers for Chips made by AMD crappy chip maker too cheap to supply drivers for it's own chips... the only things these people care about is separating  your cash from your wallet. I am extremely upset and angry over this whole deal. WE the customer are the sole reason these companies exist. I would be overjoyed to see AMD and HP both go bankrupt tomorrow..... sorry if you find me offensive, but I have a fortune tied up in this..... NEVER EVER EVER AGAIN......I am now making a point of steering anyone I can away from this junk......

[Hammerfest]

Sadly enough, AMD drivers support the entierty of last generation APU's and Mobile GPU's...

It was literally Ryzen Mobile (APU's) and Polaris Mobile (GPU's) where AMD stopped with the drivers...

They are tight lipped about if its the OEM's fault (and by fault i mean contractual obligation) or their own, and frankly, I don't care (that said, its suspect as all heck that the entire prior generation of products get mobile drivers but this one doesnt all of the sudden...)

I have 19.1.1 installed on my Lenovo A485 that I bought for vaious reasons aside from the fact that my HP Envy X360 Ryzen Mobile 15" laptop has been sitting in its box since March 2018~, no issues and as mentioned, helped others with 18.12.x on F.19 (OG poster to TechEpifany on Youtube letting him know F.19 was out, see his vids for the performance improvement's).

One day, far far away from HP

[gsoul5005]

On F.19 with Adrenalin 2019 drivers and no issues. Have GPU acceration enabled. No youtube pixating, green artifact issue.

Its the gpu driver that needs an update.

[proxyx]

This is a really laughable "solution".

First, for a month HP pretended there is no problem and did absolutely nothing. That slow pace was to demonstrate there is no issue.

Second, instead of quickly addressing the issue they caused they waited for market reaction to see how severe the damage is. It must have been severe enough.

Was F19 BIOS just a fart or deliberate attempt to update the laptop? I think it was the latter, but they perhaps got more then they bargained for and killed the F19 BIOS instead of fixing it by releasing a matching driver.

The real question is:

is there any real hardware difference between 1 year old Envy with Ryzen 2500U and todays Ryzen 2500U that is released with new set of AMD drivers.

Can 1 year old Ryzen 2500U be configured just like the recent 2500U? Does Ryzen 2500U equal Ryzen 2500U year later? Apparently not (in HP's view).

Is the old BIOS and hardware in any way limited to running only old stuff, old BIOS and old drivers?

Having all the AMD drivers at disposal, to make it all recent, HP, after a month of deliberating, releases a new-old BIOS and leaves the drivers on the 2017 level. Outrageous. Instead of saying B... they went back to A without a word of explanation.

That "fix" was good on Dec.15th, but it's not good enough on Jan 17th, 2019.

Month ago I'd have thanked HP for new BIOS, but now it makes me very frustrated, to say the least.

Bad news for HP Envy owners. They had an opportunity in this crisis, instead they chose a 5 dollar "solution", renamed the old BIOS and called it a new one. This is really insulting. This option was always on the table but if they did not use it promptly, within a week, they created a new crisis. Crisis of total lack of confidence, exposing their lack of commitment to supporting products purchased just a year ago. Never ever imagined that. 

We are already too old and obsolete to attract HP's attention. Depressing and sobering.

[Rdunn316]

---

@Hammerfest wrote:

As others have said, the fix is to UPDATE THE DRIVERS FOR THE GPU, instead they went NUCLEAR and DOWNGRADED the BIOS completely and just slaped F.20 on it!

So, with that said!

CAUTION: DO NOT UPDATE TO F.20!!! (unless you hate common sense, even if it is HP's fault)

F.20 DOWNGRADES the VRAM amount from 1GB to 256MB (causing crashing among other things in Chrome, hardware accelerated playback of video files to only show green screen, and random lock up's when using anything that uses GPU acceleration)

I am still checking the AGESA, but I am almost sure it is ALSO DOWNGRADED!

Now, for those of you with F.19 and having severe issues, you are going to have 3 options (if you havent already done them):

1: DOWNGRADE (er upgrade to F.20) and realize that HP isn't planning on updating the drivers (last I was told talking to a manager) and you wont get important microcode (AGESA) fix's or the ability to play games/use programs that arent dyanmic VRAM friendly with the 256MB VRAM buffer

2: Attempt to upgrade your drivers for the GPU using the forced install method, at least until AMD launch's official drivers next month (we hope and they claim), this doesnt always work and #3 might be required

3: Do a total reinstall of windows and then use the force install method of the AMD drivers (NOT FROM HP WHICH ARE FROM MID 2017!!!).

I have helped a few people already, and while not crash free (it is an HP afterall), as it wasnt before, it sure as heck isnt crash happy as F.19 with MID 2017 GPU DRIVERS, or F.17 or lower with MID 2017 GPU DRIVERS!

SIDE NOTE: I am making this note as there seems to be quite a bit of confusion on the BIOS version, sadly, as I have reported both early 2018 and recently (to "case manager's" even), they keep posting firmware for different model's on the same page... the 2017 Envy x360 with Ryzen Mobile had TWO variants, one with a lower revision BIOS and one with the higher end (mine came in january with F.13 IIRC), and NO, they are not cross flashable, and no, the 3rd BIOS file you are seeing there is NOT for the 2017 Envy x360... we will see if they get that removed (it took them a few months to remove the wrong one back in FEB of 2018 as well...)

---

Can you confirm if the AGESA has been downgraded in the latest F.20 BIOS? If so, I'll just keep F.19 with the 1GB fo VRAM and wait for AMD to release their generic Ryzen Mobile drivers and roll with those instead of going back to the 256MB VRAM. I force-installed the desktop Vega 8 drivers as described previously in the thread and so far it's running flawlessly...so I'm not fixing anything that's not broke lol.

[proxyx]

---

@Hammerfest wrote:
...

CAUTION: DO NOT UPDATE TO F.20!!! (unless you hate common sense, even if it is HP's fault)

F.20 DOWNGRADES the VRAM amount from 1GB to 256MB (causing crashing among other things in Chrome, hardware accelerated playback of video files to only show green screen, and random lock up's when using anything that uses GPU acceleration)

I am still checking the AGESA, but I am almost sure it is ALSO DOWNGRADED!

 ...

---

F20.  Fix and enhancements:

- Fixes an intermittent issue which causes the system to restart unexpectedly. 

Really? Their support denied that every time I called. Now they admitted to random crashes, took them a month.

Looks like they superceeded one set of random crashes with another one (described above), 

presumably more user friendly LOL. What a joke.