PC fettling and repairs thread

[Venod]

Hmm, unusual. It's not normally a problematic process. Can uou link me to the instructions page, please?

These are the instructions, but don't work for a lot of people.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/ish_4129273-2331498-16

 

[Seevio]

I kind of do this for a living so it looks straightforward to me. Which step isn't working?

 

[Venod]

I kind of do this for a living so it looks straightforward to me. Which step isn't working?

The bios update file downloads and installs in a new folders on a separate computer but when the .exe runs it does not open the window to select "install bios to USB drive" infact nothing happens, I have tried on two different computers, it seems a problem a lot of people have.

 

[DCBassman]

The problem I see is that if the original PC won't load its own BIOS, how's it ever going to boot from the stick?

 

[Venod]

The problem I see is that if the original PC won't load its own BIOS, how's it ever going to boot from the stick?

I don't know ! but these are the instruction's to restore the BIOS from a USB stick,

https://support.hp.com/gb-en/document/ish_1997719-1528356-16

The flashing light codes suggest a memory problem, but two different memory sticks have been tried, I think there is probably a motherboard problem, but it would have been nice to have been able to create a USB BIOS recovery stick to try that.

 

[DCBassman]

I don't know ! but these are the instruction's to restore the BIOS from a USB stick,

https://support.hp.com/gb-en/document/ish_1997719-1528356-16

The flashing light codes suggest a memory problem, but two different memory sticks have been tried, I think there is probably a motherboard problem, but it would have been nice to have been able to create a USB BIOS recovery stick to try that.

In the meantime, maybe try creating a live Linux USB stick, just to see if it will boot at all...

 

[Venod]

In the meantime, maybe try creating a live Linux USB stick, just to see if it will boot at all...

This brings us back to your conundrum, if the BIOS isn't loading I don't think it will boot from a USB, but HP suggest you can repair the corrupted BIOS from a USB, if only you could create a stick to do it, which I can't seem to do.

 

[MontyVeda]

improvising...

 

[DCBassman]

Writing this on my Dell XPS 1640M laptop while away dog-sitting.
Decided, as I have a fallback netbook, to try and upgrade this to Windows 11. It has no TPM, no UEFI BIOS, a hopelessly off-the-list CPU, but plenty of RAM and Storage.
After some research (about 5 minutes!), I realised it was as least faintly possible, without any great hassle. A coin-toss. Go for it.
I'm writing this on Windows 11.
Happy to go into detail if anyone is interested.

 

[MontyVeda]

I was watching a YT video about upgrading hopelessly underspeced PCs to W11 a few days ago... they used a bit of script added to the ISO folder to get round the (supposed) needlessly high spec requirements. I didn't watch it all because it was rather boring... they also claimed that W11 doesn't actually need anything near the spec it demands and MS will likely relax things as W10 become obsolete

 

[DCBassman]

I was watching a YT video about upgrading hopelessly underspeced PCs to W11 a few days ago... they used a bit of script added to the ISO folder to get round the (supposed) needlessly high spec requirements. I didn't watch it all because it was rather boring... they also claimed that W11 doesn't actually need anything near the spec it demands and MS will likely relax things as W10 become obsolete

It's much easier than that. A well-kmown USB-burning program called Rufus will do it all for you. The only thing you need to know is how to use this.

 

[DCBassman]

Just to be clear, this was an in-place upgrade using a Rufus-modifies ISO file. I've not yet tried this as a clean install on a non-UEFI machine.

 

[DCBassman]

W11 doesn't actually need anything near the spec it demands

The reality is that it doesn't need any more, at all, than W10 does.

 

[Grant Fondo]

The reality is that it doesn't need any more, at all, than W10 does.

My old i7 6700K wasn't on the Win 11 compatability list for gods sake! Still a decent cpu but had to upgrade anyway due to top-end gpu bottlenecking and '4 core impact' in some modern games.

 

[StuAff]

Spent this morning setting up my new Mac Studio.

Longest part was moving 357Gb of RAW images from my Windows machine. These sat on a 4Tb drive sitting in a 2 bay cradle connected over USB 3. A previous backup to a second 4Tb drive in another USB 3 cradle had taken the best part of 8 hours so I wasn’t expecting anything quick. I knew the USB bypus on the laptop was being stretched by the process but was pleased to see to Mac Studio complete the task via2 USB C ports in under a quarter of the time.

Nice! What spec?