asked on

HP Pavillion a6500f BIOS Update

This a6500f locks up frequently -- reboot is the only answer. I googled this model and issue and it appears that others have had similar problems. A BIOS update is suggested. How do we verify that the mother board is a NAPA GLE8. We looked at the motherboard and it has the word NAPA on it. Has anyone done a BIOS update for this machine?

SOLUTION

cfgtechs

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

SOLUTION

☠ MASQ ☠

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

HenryWilfred

ASKER

Thanks for the quick responses. We are going to look this over in detail before we proceed. It will probably be Thursday before we take actions.

Again - thanks for the responses. I'll be in touch.

nobus

you can also use siw to display the motherboard model : http://www.gtopala.com/

HenryWilfred

ASKER

We have updated the BIOS successfully. BUT --- The a6500f still locks up frequently. Is this model problematic for hangups? Google gets quite few hits when I search on locks up and a6500f.

Our experience is that it is locking up while IE9 is running. We have the machine machine running Windows/7 at the latest level and we do have a dual monitor setup (with Dell 19" displays).

HenryWilfred

ASKER

We have the a6500f installed with 4gb of RAM. We took out the two 2gb sticks and put the original tw 1gb sticks back in -- no failures after 1/ hour of stress testing. How do we determine if memory is bad?

SOLUTION

nobus

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

SOLUTION

nobus

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

HenryWilfred

ASKER

Memory has tested OK. Plus I put in a separate set of 2X1gb sticks and the lock up still occurs -- although at a slower rate after the BIOS upgrade (1-2 failures per 8 hours). I would like to purchase an identical replacement PC -- but am nervous about having the same problem again. We have done a great deal of work to migrate an XP PC with lots of Apps to Windows/7 and Office/2010 on this PC. I don't want to do that again.

Anyone out there that has had good luck with an A6500f? How can I determine if the model itself is problematic?

SOLUTION

nobus

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

nobus

what can help (for ram) is changing the ram settings - if you can from the bios :
change latency to recommended by manufacturer, or increase the voltage settigns of the ram
best google the values for the board, and ram first - or post them here

HenryWilfred

ASKER

The HP PC is working well. No failures in 3 days. Looks like RAM was not an issue. I think the HP BIOS upgrade must have resolved it. We did have one failure after this upgrade was applied. We reduced the PC back to the original 2GB (we had upgraded to 4gb) and it has stabilized and has good performance. I am thinking that the PC created more heat w/4 GB and that might be a portion of the problem. We are going to add another fan when we put the 4GB back in. Any comments on my thoery? I am guessing a bit here? Thanks for your help. I'll close this out in a few days -- assuming we continue to function well.

SOLUTION

nobus

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

HenryWilfred

ASKER

Nobus - I am holding off on the fan idea. Thanks for you opinion.

PC is functioning very well right now. 5 days - no failures. I have a "stress" test to see if I can make it fail -- cannot try it until Wednesday.

the 4 GB filled 4 slots? NO -- 2 X 2gb memory sticks

Thanks (everyone) for your help!

nobus

>> 5 days - no failures << what changed?

HenryWilfred

ASKER

1. Updated the BIOS
2. Replaced 4gb RAM with original 2GB RAM

nobus

time to close this Q then?

HenryWilfred

ASKER

PC failed again yesterday.

Nobus: You advised:
what can help (for ram) is changing the ram settings - if you can from the bios :
change latency to recommended by manufacturer, or increase the voltage settigns of the ram
best google the values for the board, and ram first - or post them here

We will look at this before we give up. Sorry for dragging this out -- intermittent issues are difficult to close quickly.

Thanks for the advice.

nobus

no problem - if you post the ram model - i can assist if you like

HenryWilfred

ASKER

The ram that is in the system is the following

Buffalo PC2-4200U-444-10-B1 1 GB 533MHZ CL4 2 Rx8 DDR2 SDRAM and
MT16HTF12864AY-53EB1 1GB 2Rx8 PC2-4200U-444-12-B0 1GB, DDR2, 533, CL4

had also tried putting in 4GB with these Crucial Memory parts
Crucial CT25664AA800.M16FH 2GB 240-PIN DDR2 DIMM UNBUFF P
which I believe are PC2-6400

I have seen a couple of posts where people put in PC2-5300 and were successful in the system being stable.

Here is a link that refers to that

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Desktop-Lockups-Freezes-Hangs/Bizarre-freezing-crashing-on-HP-Pavilion-a6500f-Desktop-PC/td-p/253723

Was thinking that maybe should get couple of 1GB PC2-5300 memory sticks and try that.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

nobus

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

HenryWilfred

ASKER

It looks like we may have this resolved. I thank all of you for your pieces of advice. We needed all the comments.