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Recovery after HP tech support bricked my father's laptop

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Re: Recovery after HP tech support bricked my father's laptop

#51

Post by pugworthy »

Repeating a reply to a comment here, but I think it needs to be said.

People need to be careful they don't overgeneralize too much about HP. Especially if basing opinions on home/small office product lines, which is not all HP does. I'll fully agree that the bad rep due to home/small office products is probably well deserved.

But HP has some pretty interesting and successful products such as the Life Sciences dispensers for cells and fluids (see https://www.hp.com/us-en/specialty-printing-solutions/life-s...).

Then there are the industrial printing products (https://www.hp.com/us-en/industrial-digital-presses.html) which are rather mind bogglingly fast and capable. Imagine a printer printing to a paper roll 40" wide at hundreds of feet per second, and the printing is paper statements to be cut and sorted for mailing.

Re: Recovery after HP tech support bricked my father's laptop

#52

Post by OptionOfT »

casenmgreen wrote: post #39

Long time ago, I had a similar - but worse - experience with Sony, with a Vaio laptop. Ultra-high end laptop, and I had also paid for and fitted an Intel X25-E, the very first and single-cell ultra high performance SSD. Laptop was 2k euro, drive was another 700 euro. After a year or two, the fan begins to run loud - that's fine, normal event. Laptop is sent back under warranty for fan replacement. Laptop returns with…

I'm truing to understand here what you were expecting the outcome to be? Your old motherboard back, but fixed?

Re: Recovery after HP tech support bricked my father's laptop

#53

Post by jonathanlydall »

rzzzt wrote: post #29
croes wrote: post #12

A fallback BIOS should be standard by now Didn't Gigabyte put that onto their mainboards

Yes, around 2009: https://www.techpowerup.com/96967/dualbios-becomes-standard-...

Gigabyte has had dual bios motherboards since 1999, but made it standard for all their motherboards in 2009.

https://www.gigabyte.com/Press/News/795

As I recall, they initially introduced this feature due to a virus around the time which would intentionally corrupt BIOSes.

Re: Recovery after HP tech support bricked my father's laptop

#54

Post by heartag »

cricalix wrote: post #27
nick238 wrote: post #17

Technically awesome, but policy-wise, sic Tech Jesus from Gamers Nexus ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pMrssIrKcY ) and/or Louis Rossmann on HP!

Link needs a (2021) I think. Repository says 3 years ago. However, they'd probably still be interested as a pattern of evidence thing.

I should have included the year, apologies.

Re: Recovery after HP tech support bricked my father's laptop

#55

Post by heartag »

yelling_cat wrote: post #44

When I was a kid HP products were well-supported and famed for their durability. My dad still uses the HP scientific calculator his father bought in the '70s and my uncle has an old PC hooked up to a '90s LaserJet printer that works perfectly well. Retired engineers I've talked to gush about working there in the HP Way days, they were respected and got to create fantastic products that their customers loved. Now "HP"…

I feel like a lot of companies went that way. I have one of those HP calculators, and it was fantastic.

Re: Recovery after HP tech support bricked my father's laptop

#56

Post by heartag »

BoredPositron wrote: post #43
dishsoap wrote: post #40

That's very surprising that the image from the firmware update alone is sufficient to boot the machine. On the overwhelming majority of laptops, the update capsules don't contain the NVRAM sections (so no set or default values for any settings) and typically this is enough to prevent the firmware from booting the machine. It's also interesting/impressive how much work the author went through to reinvent the wheel wit…

The desoldering did it for me but good for him if it works in the end. It could be done by way less technical people with the proper (cheap) tools though. The article is a bit of a double edged sword because of it.

I agree. The situation was me trying to use materials on-hand, but it makes the writeup less useful.

Re: Recovery after HP tech support bricked my father's laptop

#57

Post by heartag »

Rudism wrote: post #42

It's too bad the author didn't think to restore the factory RAM before shipping it. My unrelenting cynicism always makes me very careful to hide any evidence of tinkering on the rare occasions when I need to send a tech product off for warranty repairs.

The laptop was purchased with upgraded RAM, so there wasn't any OEM sticks to swap in. That is a good idea if possible though.

Re: Recovery after HP tech support bricked my father's laptop

#58

Post by heartag »

jgrahamc wrote: post #28

This is a very cool story. I've messed around with SPI flash stuff both using Pomona clips and also individual per pin clips: https://blog.jgc.org/2023/05/an-unexpected-journey-making-yo...

Thanks for sharing. I love how detailed that writeup is. And you used the tools that I wasn't smart enough to employ for mine.

Re: Recovery after HP tech support bricked my father's laptop

#59

Post by sorokod »

pugworthy wrote: post #51

Repeating a reply to a comment here, but I think it needs to be said. People need to be careful they don't overgeneralize too much about HP. Especially if basing opinions on home/small office product lines, which is not all HP does. I'll fully agree that the bad rep due to home/small office products is probably well deserved. But HP has some pretty interesting and successful products such as the Life Sciences dispens…

That people will generalize is something that HP should consider when they "comingle" their various divisions.

Re: Recovery after HP tech support bricked my father's laptop

#60

Post by patrakov »

jonathanlydall wrote: post #53
rzzzt wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, around 2009: https://www.techpowerup.com/96967/dualbios-becomes-standard-...

Gigabyte has had dual bios motherboards since 1999, but made it standard for all their motherboards in 2009. https://www.gigabyte.com/Press/News/795 As I recall, they initially introduced this feature due to a virus around the time which would intentionally corrupt BIOSes.

The CIH virus? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIH_(computer_virus)
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