SecretMethod70

Yes yes, so I used the wrong word, I do know the difference... still not a hardware failure and, more importantly, a failure caused by HP's provided update I called it a software failure because, as far as I can tell, the source of the problem is WinFlash, the software they provided to do the update. There have apparently been a lot of complaints about WinFlash on the HP forums. My laptop doesn't work because the firmware didn't update properly; the firmware didn't update properly because they provided buggy software to perform the BIOS flash.Right... but it never hurts to try booting from the CD, just like I knew taking out the laptop battery and replacing it wouldn't do anything, but I did that too when tech support suggested it. It's often easier to just do it than explain why I already know it won't work. As for replacing the BIOS chip, that's kinda the point of the thread here... I either need to roll back the BIOS somehow (not unreasonable on a desktop, but I don't know how to do it on a laptop), or replace the BIOS chip and/or mobo (again, something I can do on a desktop, but I need guidance on a laptop). It would cost me $300-400 to have HP replace the mobo even though I'm only now 5 days past my warranty... they don't deserve the money, and the amount of work they'd have to do plus parts certainly isn't worth that much anyway. If I can convince them to honor the warranty, or do it for free anyway since it was caused by their BIOS update, then I'm happy to have them do it instead of doing it myself. I spoke to a new person from tech support yesterday who apparently had better English comprehension, and he escalated my case. Hopefully when the new person calls my in the next day or so, I can get them to fix it free of charge.Yes, and this BIOS update was intended to fix speed issues in the SD card reader, which would move at a crawl when I used it and slow down everything else on the laptop at the same time.

Come on, I do have some idea of what I'm doing here I understand though, even the most computer literate of people are sometimes caught by that first tech support question: "is it plugged in?" Nope, no beep :/ I'm pretty positive I need a new mobo seeing as how apparently laptops are made assuming you'll never have a bad BIOS flash. I'm talking with a guy on the HP forums who might know of a way to roll back the bios, but I'm not holding my breath. The $300-400 HP wants to replace the motherboard would still be less than the laptop is worth today, but I'd much rather do it myself if I can. Just need to find someone with experience working on laptop insides to give me some pointers. Unfortunately, not many people do.Yeah, with the laptop I suppose I should have gotten the 3 year warranty, knowing I can't fix problems as easily as I could on a desktop. That said, I take spectacular care of the laptop and don't do much in terms of moving it around: it goes between my desk at home and my desk at work. If it weren't for this shitty BIOS situation, I'm pretty positive I wouldn't run into any issues within even the three year warranty period.From what I've read, it doesn't seem they bother with these precautionary measures on most laptops. Pretty ridiculous.It's true, a year is a year, but, like jewels said, a retail business needs to consider their image when dealing with customers. I used to work for one of the mega-chain bookstores - prime suspect for draconian adherence to the written policy - but we would frequently take back books that were past the 30 day return length, or even without the required receipt, so long as they were in good condition and the customer was being reasonable. We could have turned them away and pointed to the back of the receipt (and we did when the customer was being a jerk or clearly making shit up), but a little leniency goes a LONG way toward creating satisfied customers.Absolutely. The guy that I spoke to last night (or the lady the night before) wouldn't be the right person to tell that too - the first level of support is typically just people reading out of a manual, so I don't want to make their lives difficult for no reason - but when the next level person calls me back I plan to tell him exactly that. I've been quite happy with my HP laptop up until this point, despite initially wanting a Dell, and this experience will absolutely factor into who I buy from the next time I need a laptop.Lesson learned. I've never had a problem flashing from Windows before, but my past experiences were on my desktop so it would have been relatively easy to fix even if I had. Certainly not something I'll be doing on a laptop again.Apparently when the tech support person on the phone told me to remove the laptop battery and external power and hold the power button for 30 seconds, that was supposed to reset the CMOS. Odd to me that I wouldn't need to deal with a separate motherboard battery, but I'm less familiar with laptops. I finally found the manual though, and sure enough that's what it says to do to reset the CMOS.

Scratch that, I took a closer look at the manual and there is a clock battery to be removed. It seemed stupid when the tech support person just had me remove the laptop battery, but hey what do I know, they're tech support! Sure enough, it was as stupid as I thought. Anyway, I'm going to try resetting the CMOS now and see if that helps...I'm not positive yet, but based on comments I've seen while searching for solutions to my problem it seems I do not have a socket-style BIOS chip. I've seen a lot of comments about soldering. I'll know more after I get a chance to read through the manual and deal with the next tech support person: if he won't help me, I'll probably take a look inside and see what I can find out.

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