Legacy systems

[KingWhiskers]

I have 3 DV9700 17" laptops that I was going to restore only I now find that HP have stopped all support for them.

This is especially annoying as there was no warning email informing you of that.

Any ideas on finding drivers for them.

If there had of been I could have downloaded all the drivers and burnt to a dvd for safe keeping.

Any assistance greatly appreciated thanks.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Yes, I don't like that HP quits supporting PC's that are 10 or more years old, but that is the support policy.

They don't provide any warnings until it is too late.

The good news is that most of the drivers still reside on the FTP site.

In order to give you the drivers you need, I need to know the product number or model numbers of the dv9700 models you have.

The product number can be found on the same label as the serial number.

Please do not post the serial number.

[KingWhiskers]

Wow, thanks I wasn't expecting such a speedy reply.

Product is HP Pavilion dv9700         Service Tag dv9820ea  Part number KW303EA#ABU

BIOS updates and Sata Drivers are what I would most need.

I was going to try W10 on them but I have XP, Vista, W7 , W8 And W10 installation media.

It is just something to play with.

I could do with an  XP 32 bit installation for some car diagnostic programs that I am thinking of using.

One of the others is a dv9821ea, cant find the other at the moment, but all have reconditioned motherboards that I am going to fit, all will have the 2.4 AMD processor, the fastest that was available for them, One will have a bluetooth device on it.

Many thanks again, you are a star.

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

You're very welcome.

The models with the nVidia chipsets and AMD processors do not need SATA drivers in order to install any version of Windows, since the drive controller is set to IDE (even though they are SATA drives).

The only drivers that exist are for Windows Vista, and you cannot update the BIOS unless you are running XP or Vista.

Otherwise the PC will be wrecked.

Here is the BIOS update you need for the dv9700's with AMD processors...

Info file:

ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp52001-52500/sp52477.html

Exe File:

ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp52001-52500/sp52477.exe

That will get you started, and if there is anything else you need, please do not hesitate to ask.

Again...only update the BIOS if you have XP or Vista installed on your PC's.

[KingWhiskers]

Hi Paul, thank you so much for that.

I have a hard drive running Vista and working in a dv 9700. so easy to check when I have rebuilt one whether it is working or not, then can check bios version and update if necessary.  Then update with a  new SHDD, one of those seagate hybrid drives that have either 8/ 16 / or 32 gb Nand flash ram, those I have found are brilliant little drives.

These DV9700 are brilliant for dual boot machines as they have two Hdd docks.

If I need other drivers I know how to search for them by using the PCI&VEN id, that generally gets me out of trouble. not adverse to doing a little ini file editing to get things to install either.

Got Nvidia 690 graphics cards running on XP by that trick.

Thanks again you are a star, much kudos for that.  

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Anytime.

Glad to have been of assistance.