I need access to hidden BIOS options

[SammyJHyde]

Hello,

I'm currently using an HP Envy notebook and require access to BIOS options that are hidden from the consumer. I have previously browsed these forums for a potential solution and have found none. Unfortunately, I cannot find an HP support email, phone number or ticket option and will be making this post in hopes I can be connected to the proper support team. 

The issue stems from the BIOS on this notebook having very little in the way of options and customization. While this BIOS does have an extensive collection of options, they are all default set with a fixed value and hidden from the user to change. These settings that have been described by HP as "best managed by the system" are currently causing a litany of issues with my operating system. An example would be DVMT-pre allocated memory. This setting is available in the BIOS forms under advanced -> Video Configuration and is default set at 32MB with no option to reconfigure. In fact, the entire Advanced BIOS form is suppressed from the BIOS at the user level. There are several other settings causing a great deal of headache as well.

This notebook was a fairly expensive custom order and was manufactured in 2015, receiving its last BIOS update in 2018 (InsydeH2O F.57). Since then, new CPU microcode has been released alongside drivers for various chipsets, controllers and the iGPU. If HP is no longer interested in maintaining the firmware for this line of products than I believe I should have the option to do so myself.

Hopefully I can be connected to a support assistant/agent who will understand my concerns and can provide help or proper contact information as these issues are detrimental to my daily productivity. 

Thanks.

[WAWood]

@SammyJHyde 

Sorry, but apart from business notebooks and some high-end gaming PCs, accessing Advanced BIOS option on HP PCs is not possible.

Some OEMs lock out the advanced BIOS options to prevent customers from making changes to options that can destabilize or otherwise damage the PC -- and then send it back for repair under warranty claiming they did nothing to it.

I know only SOME of the advanced options are risky, but it's simpler to disable access to ALL advanced options than to allow/disallow on an individual option basis.

That's the course of action that HP has chosen. No one from here is going to provide you any means of getting around that.

[SammyJHyde]

@WAWood

Right, and I understand that. I'm just a bit upset about the notebooks that are 5 years out of warranty like mine is, there should be no reason to keep a 6 year old computer that no longer receives updates locked as if it were brand new and still under warranty. It would be one thing if HP still supplied current updates to the BIOS, but this platform has become completely stagnant in the updates it receives by over 2 years now.

As it stands my options are to either re-provision this board as a business model by cleaning the ME and obliterating the DMI tables, mod the BIOS and use something like IDA Pro to reverse engineer the RSA check at startup, use IDA to modify the update package to allow downgrading to a version where the UEFI variables aren't locked, or somehow convince the massive corporation that is HP that they should roll out an update for this platform and include some IGD options in the setup utility.

Somehow all the former options seem more realistic and feasible than the latter. Especially since HP does not seem to have any contact information for customers and the only support options are these forums or the virtual assistant that is as advanced as my first ever java program.

Regardless, I appreciate the response and I hope you don't take the tone of it personally. I understand you're not an HP employee nor do you represent them. I hope you'll understand most of my frustration is directed at HP and not these forums or their contributors such as yourself.