HP All-In_One Computer problems

On 15/06/2020 12:59, Todesco wrote:
Â*I'm thinking it's in the BIOS.


I'm thinking it is in your brain.Â* It looks defective to me here sitting
in sunny London.



--
With over 1.2 billion devices now running Windows 10, customer
satisfaction is higher than any previous version of windows.

Todesco wrote:

I actually got it running using the w10 download from MS ... for a
while. Now it just goes into HP recovery when I try to start it up and
then hangs. I thought pumping in the MS W10 load, would avoid the HP
junk. I'm thinking it's in the BIOS. The BIOS looks good. There are
some diagnostics in the BIOS that all seem to run ok... memory and hard
SSD. I thought she invested in the 2 year extended warranty, but I
can't find any record of either her or me paying for it, so I guess we
take it to Best Buy and pay now.

There might be limits as to what you can do
to it in that state.

Some machines support BIOS updating from the BIOS
itself. In the old days, inserting a floppy with
a particularly named file on FAT32, the BIOS might
be able to install a new version of the BIOS that way.

I don't know if there's any notion of "resetting a BIOS"
on these machines.

I also cannot tell you what the machine may have had
in the System Reserved.

The F11 is intercepted at BIOS level, and "goes to the
HP recovery", which implies some sort of boot loader is
present. Two keys are normally used for BIOS functions

BIOS entry key
Popup Boot Menu (which OS to start)

and these should be in the manual. HP adds

Recovery key

which really amounts to booting a partition with
a WinPE in it as an OS.

https://www.ubackup.com/screenshot/e...m-recovery.jpg

At this distance, I don't know any more than that,
like the details of how it's wired together from
a logic perspective.

The UEFI in a modern BIOS offers a shell, so there's
plenty of hooks for a manufacturer to do all sorts
of whizzy stuff. But how will we discover how that
works ? The above article provided zero other hints
of any usage, concerning wiring or how a System
Reserved might have fitted into the picture.

You could contact HP and ask about a "Recovery Disc"
for the machine. It might involve a pair of DVDs
perhaps. Some manufacturers charge $50 for the baggy
with the disc set in it, but they should *only*
be doing that, if the machine came with discs and
you lost them. It's likely these stinking machines
come with nothing, and apparently in this case,
the "prompt" did not appear on the screen to
burn recovery media, once the owner started using
the machine. On my Acer, the machine pesters you
within a day or two of OOBE (Out-Of-Box-Experience
account signin and setup).

Paul

On Mon, 15 Jun 2020 14:46:48 -0400, Paul wrote:

You could contact HP and ask about a "Recovery Disc"
for the machine. It might involve a pair of DVDs
perhaps.

What the heck is DIFFERENT about a "regular" & an "all in one" desktop?

As for the subject line, I had heard of HP "all in one" printers; but I
didn't know about HP "all in one computers".

Looking it up, I found it _is_ a thing...
o HP All-in-One Desktops
https://store.hp.com/us/en/vwa/desktops/form=All-in-One

Although I'm not sure what "all in one" really means as even Costco,
apparently, has Apple "all in one" computers:
o All-in-One Desktop Computers & PCs
https://www.costco.com/desktops-servers.html?computer-type=all-in-one

Most of the "all in one" seem to be HP though:
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/all-desktops/all-in-one-computers/abcat0501005.c

What the heck is DIFFERENT about a "regular" & an "all in one" desktop?

Arlen Holder wrote:
On Mon, 15 Jun 2020 14:46:48 -0400, Paul wrote:

You could contact HP and ask about a "Recovery Disc"
for the machine. It might involve a pair of DVDs
perhaps.

What the heck is DIFFERENT about a "regular" & an "all in one" desktop?

As for the subject line, I had heard of HP "all in one" printers; but I
didn't know about HP "all in one computers".

Looking it up, I found it _is_ a thing...
o HP All-in-One Desktops
https://store.hp.com/us/en/vwa/desktops/form=All-in-One

Although I'm not sure what "all in one" really means as even Costco,
apparently, has Apple "all in one" computers:
o All-in-One Desktop Computers & PCs
https://www.costco.com/desktops-servers.html?computer-type=all-in-one

Most of the "all in one" seem to be HP though:
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/all-desktops/all-in-one-computers/abcat0501005.c

What the heck is DIFFERENT about a "regular" & an "all in one" desktop?

An AIO (desktop computer) has the motherboard in back
of the LCD monitor panel, or it's possible for a "base unit",
a brick, to be located below the monitor, and have some
of the electronics in there. The PSU and disk drive could
go in the base for example.

Some AIO even have an optical drive, and you put the optical
discs in vertically.

It's just a laptop, but without a keyboard. It means
your keyboard is mobile, and the keyboard could be moved
out of the way, leaving the rest of it sitting there static.
Usually a bit heavier than a laptop, so does not
particularly encourage movement. Can also have a larger
screen than a laptop might have (Apple kind of defines the
archetype, and others salt to taste).

If you're lucky, it doesn't use eMMC. Leaving your
disk drive as a maintainable item.

Generally, unless your eyeballs are a limitation, a
laptop is a better usage of money. If you were to
get one with a yard-wide IPS panel, it could easily
cost a couple thousand bucks for no particular reason.
Laptops are pretty limited on screen options.

Paul

On Mon, 15 Jun 2020 16:52:44 -0400, Paul wrote:

It's just a laptop, but without a keyboard.

Ah, thanks for explaining as this was new to me.

(At first, I thought the thread was about an "all in one printer".)

Much appreciated your kind purposefully helpful AI1 clarification.
--
Usenet is a wondrously public polite helpdesk where users share new ideas.

On 2020-06-15 3:52 p.m., Paul wrote:
Arlen Holder wrote:
On Mon, 15 Jun 2020 14:46:48 -0400, Paul wrote:

You could contact HP and ask about a "Recovery Disc"
for the machine. It might involve a pair of DVDs
perhaps.

What the heck is DIFFERENT about a "regular" & an "all in one" desktop?

As for the subject line, I had heard of HP "all in one" printers; but I
didn't know about HP "all in one computers".

Looking it up, I found it _is_ a thing...
o HP All-in-One Desktops
https://store.hp.com/us/en/vwa/desktops/form=All-in-One

Although I'm not sure what "all in one" really means as even Costco,
apparently, has Apple "all in one" computers:
o All-in-One Desktop Computers & PCs
https://www.costco.com/desktops-servers.html?computer-type=all-in-one

Most of the "all in one" seem to be HP though:
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/all-desktops/all-in-one-computers/abcat0501005.c


What the heck is DIFFERENT about a "regular" & an "all in one" desktop?

An AIO (desktop computer) has the motherboard in back
of the LCD monitor panel, or it's possible for a "base unit",
a brick, to be located below the monitor, and have some
of the electronics in there. The PSU and disk drive could
go in the base for example.

Some AIO even have an optical drive, and you put the optical
discs in vertically.

It's just a laptop, but without a keyboard. It means
your keyboard is mobile, and the keyboard could be moved
out of the way, leaving the rest of it sitting there static.
Usually a bit heavier than a laptop, so does not
particularly encourage movement. Can also have a larger
screen than a laptop might have (Apple kind of defines the
archetype, and others salt to taste).

If you're lucky, it doesn't use eMMC. Leaving your
disk drive as a maintainable item.

Generally, unless your eyeballs are a limitation, a
laptop is a better usage of money. If you were to
get one with a yard-wide IPS panel, it could easily
cost a couple thousand bucks for no particular reason.
Laptops are pretty limited on screen options.

Â*Â* Paul

I think Acer still had a laptop couple years ago, a 21 inch screen,
weighed about 19 pounds and sold for about $9000.00 usd.

Rene

In article , Rene Lamontagne
wrote:

I think Acer still had a laptop couple years ago, a 21 inch screen,
weighed about 19 pounds and sold for about $9000.00 usd.

they did, and may have even called it a laptop, but at ~19 pounds,
horrible battery life and needing *two* power adapters, it was not a
laptop.

it also had a curved display, which means it can't close flat:
https://icdn2.digitaltrends.com/imag...predator-21x-c
losed-1500x1000.jpg

On 2020-06-15 5:07 p.m., nospam wrote:
In article , Rene Lamontagne
wrote:

I think Acer still had a laptop couple years ago, a 21 inch screen,
weighed about 19 pounds and sold for about $9000.00 usd.

they did, and may have even called it a laptop, but at ~19 pounds,
horrible battery life and needing *two* power adapters, it was not a
laptop.

it also had a curved display, which means it can't close flat:
https://icdn2.digitaltrends.com/imag...predator-21x-c
losed-1500x1000.jpg


Who in hell would want a curved screen on an Overweight so called laptop?

Rene

In article , Rene Lamontagne
wrote:

I think Acer still had a laptop couple years ago, a 21 inch screen,
weighed about 19 pounds and sold for about $9000.00 usd.

they did, and may have even called it a laptop, but at ~19 pounds,
horrible battery life and needing *two* power adapters, it was not a
laptop.

it also had a curved display, which means it can't close flat:
https://icdn2.digitaltrends.com/imag...predator-21x-c
losed-1500x1000.jpg


Who in hell would want a curved screen on an Overweight so called laptop?

exactly.

Todesco wrote:

I actually got it running using the w10 download from MS ... for a
while. Now it just goes into HP recovery when I try to start it up and
then hangs. I thought pumping in the MS W10 load, would avoid the HP
junk. I'm thinking it's in the BIOS. The BIOS looks good. There are
some diagnostics in the BIOS that all seem to run ok... memory and hard
SSD. I thought she invested in the 2 year extended warranty, but I
can't find any record of either her or me paying for it, so I guess we
take it to Best Buy and pay now.

You could take a look at the Recovery USB Flash stick
and see if it's OK.

The USB stick has Boot\, EFI\, and Sources\ at the top level.

In Sources, mine (homemade) has

Reconstruct.WIM 3,536,708,935 bytes
boot.wim 438,503,244 bytes

To check a WIM, there's a recipe here.

http://al.howardknight.net/?STYPE=ms...nt-email.me%3E

https://wimlib.net/downloads/wimlib-...x86_64-bin.zip === 64-bit
(32-bit
available)

wimlib-15.dll
wimlib-imagex.exe

wimlib-imagex verify R:\sources\reconstruct.wim

And it will take a while as it decompresses and
verifies the structure of the file.

if the SHA1 table has been generated and put
at the end of the WIM file, it will check that
part too. The file is chopped into 10MB pieces and
SHA1 calculated on each piece, then stored in an
optional table.

My homemade recovery stick, the "reconstruct.wim"
has no integrity table, so only the structure
can be checked. And that is not as strong of a check.

You said the recovery stopped at 80%, and checking the
two (or more) files on the USB stick would be part of
verifying it wasn't a USB stick failure of some sort.

Paul

On 6/13/2020 7:11 PM, Todesco wrote:
Back in January an 84yo friend bought an HP all in one computer.Â* She
wanted to get into computers and internet.Â* Three days ago she called
that it wouldn't boot and went into some kind of long term repair,
apparently an HP program.Â* I now have the computer home.Â* Originally, it
would come up to the desktop, but the screen would flash from black to
the background pic about once per second.Â* You couldn't easily access
anything.Â* I've tried using the recovery thumb drive to bring it back
up.Â* Nothing.Â* Apparently the HP "overlay" program takes over and while
it tries to "repair" it usually aborts.Â* Now I can't even get back up in
Windows because I think, the repair has overwritten stuff.Â* BTW I've run
the HP diagnostics and everything seems good.Â* It's Windows 10, but I
don't know which version ... I'm guessing home.Â* Any ideas?Â* Would I be
able to download the install from microsoft and run it?Â* Thanks.
I have an appointment next week to take it to Geek Squad at Best Buy.
They have a 'deal' that cost $200 to fix it, plus it is a 1 year policy
to fix anything that happens. We were supposed to buy an extended
warranty but both of us dropped the ball and apparently forgot. So this
sort of qualifies. I'll let you know what happens. Thanks for all the
ideas and discussion.

Todesco wrote:
On 6/13/2020 7:11 PM, Todesco wrote:
Back in January an 84yo friend bought an HP all in one computer. She
wanted to get into computers and internet. Three days ago she called
that it wouldn't boot and went into some kind of long term repair,
apparently an HP program. I now have the computer home. Originally,
it would come up to the desktop, but the screen would flash from black
to the background pic about once per second. You couldn't easily
access anything. I've tried using the recovery thumb drive to bring
it back up. Nothing. Apparently the HP "overlay" program takes over
and while it tries to "repair" it usually aborts. Now I can't even
get back up in Windows because I think, the repair has overwritten
stuff. BTW I've run the HP diagnostics and everything seems good.
It's Windows 10, but I don't know which version ... I'm guessing
home. Any ideas? Would I be able to download the install from
microsoft and run it? Thanks.

I have an appointment next week to take it to Geek Squad at Best Buy.
They have a 'deal' that cost $200 to fix it, plus it is a 1 year policy
to fix anything that happens. We were supposed to buy an extended
warranty but both of us dropped the ball and apparently forgot. So this
sort of qualifies. I'll let you know what happens. Thanks for all the
ideas and discussion.

That sounds like an "OS installation fee".

In your case, it's probably merited, because at this point
there might not be much left of the disk setup and partitions.
You would think though, that the recovery partition would
still be on the machine (4 to 12GB of disk space).

That's why, if I was there, I'd be "going forensic" and
starting by reviewing what partitions are still present,
and what's on them.

I hope the $200 includes enough analysis to determine the
machine is sound. You yourself could run "memtest"...

http://www.memtest.org

or look at the brand of hard drive and run the WDC disk test
or the Seagate disk test. (There are a few more brands
available, but those are common ones. My room is full of
those two. A laptop might have a Toshiba or a HGST[nee IBM] one.)

You could also run a Linux LiveDVD on it, to make the
computer work. Linux is pretty resistant to RAM problems, in
the sense that the kernel hardly does a "panic" with bad
RAM, but applications disappear (crash) a lot easier,
and that helps hint that the hardware (CPU/mem/northbridge)
are not stable for some reason. If RAM is bad in
"just the right set of locations", all hell breaks
loose, and you can get a very wide array of symptoms.
But assuming RAM failures are random, the odds are
in your favor that the machine stays up.

The machine itself should have some sort of hardware warranty,
and then you'd need a "qualified service organization" to
get some part of it replaced under warranty. Typically
a Geek Squad would phone you and say "the motherboard needs
to be replaced", when they haven't a clue what's wrong with
it. They have some sort of centralized repair strategy, where
the machine could be shipped to another city for that
sort of thing. Whereas the local service "does OS reinstalls"
is more their speed. Not every shop of theirs has a
"hardware person", and if they catch a whiff of "hardware
failure", it might head off to another city.

A mom&pop does all of that themselves. But when it comes
to warranty work, I don't know what the bar is like for
"qualified service". I expect there's too many opportunities
for "warranty rip-off" to be allowing just anyone to do
warranty repair.

At the very least, I would check what my HP warranty is. Using
a Geek Squad is good if you wanted the machine back a little
faster I suppose. It shouldn't take them long to do their
"OS reinstall" schtick and then reach some conclusion about
what happens next.

Paul

On 16/06/2020 12:24, Todesco wrote:
On 6/13/2020 7:11 PM, Todesco wrote:
Back in January an 84yo friend bought an HP all in one computer.Â* She
wanted to get into computers and internet.Â* Three days ago she called
that it wouldn't boot and went into some kind of long term repair,
apparently an HP program.Â* I now have the computer home.Â* Originally,
it would come up to the desktop, but the screen would flash from
black to the background pic about once per second.Â* You couldn't
easily access anything.Â* I've tried using the recovery thumb drive to
bring it back up.Â* Nothing.Â* Apparently the HP "overlay" program
takes over and while it tries to "repair" it usually aborts. Now I
can't even get back up in Windows because I think, the repair has
overwritten stuff.Â* BTW I've run the HP diagnostics and everything
seems good.Â* It's Windows 10, but I don't know which version ... I'm
guessing home.Â* Any ideas?Â* Would I be able to download the install
from microsoft and run it?Â* Thanks.
I have an appointment next week to take it to Geek Squad at Best Buy.
They have a 'deal' that cost $200 to fix it, plus it is a 1 year
policy to fix anything that happens.Â* We were supposed to buy an
extended warranty but both of us dropped the ball and apparently
forgot.Â* So this sort of qualifies.Â* I'll let you know what happens.Â*
Thanks for all the ideas and discussion.

You can have a contract with me for £100 per year.Â* this is 100GBP and
my work is guaranteed for 1 year.Â* You'll pay for any hardware
requirements.Â* that's a good deal you'll have to agree and I won't
criticise your defective brain with your active subscription with my
company.

--
With over 1.2 billion devices now running Windows 10, customer
satisfaction is higher than any previous version of windows.

On 6/16/2020 12:05 PM, Paul wrote:
Todesco wrote:
On 6/13/2020 7:11 PM, Todesco wrote:
Back in January an 84yo friend bought an HP all in one computer.Â* She
wanted to get into computers and internet.Â* Three days ago she called
that it wouldn't boot and went into some kind of long term repair,
apparently an HP program.Â* I now have the computer home.Â* Originally,
it would come up to the desktop, but the screen would flash from
black to the background pic about once per second.Â* You couldn't
easily access anything.Â* I've tried using the recovery thumb drive to
bring it back up.Â* Nothing.Â* Apparently the HP "overlay" program
takes over and while it tries to "repair" it usually aborts.Â* Now I
can't even get back up in Windows because I think, the repair has
overwritten stuff.Â* BTW I've run the HP diagnostics and everything
seems good. It's Windows 10, but I don't know which version ... I'm
guessing home.Â* Any ideas?Â* Would I be able to download the install
from microsoft and run it?Â* Thanks.

I have an appointment next week to take it to Geek Squad at Best Buy.
They have a 'deal' that cost $200 to fix it, plus it is a 1 year
policy to fix anything that happens.Â* We were supposed to buy an
extended warranty but both of us dropped the ball and apparently
forgot.Â* So this sort of qualifies.Â* I'll let you know what happens.
Thanks for all the ideas and discussion.

That sounds like an "OS installation fee".

In your case, it's probably merited, because at this point
there might not be much left of the disk setup and partitions.
You would think though, that the recovery partition would
still be on the machine (4 to 12GB of disk space).

That's why, if I was there, I'd be "going forensic" and
starting by reviewing what partitions are still present,
and what's on them.

I hope the $200 includes enough analysis to determine the
machine is sound. You yourself could run "memtest"...

http://www.memtest.org

or look at the brand of hard drive and run the WDC disk test
or the Seagate disk test. (There are a few more brands
available, but those are common ones. My room is full of
those two. A laptop might have a Toshiba or a HGST[nee IBM] one.)

You could also run a Linux LiveDVD on it, to make the
computer work. Linux is pretty resistant to RAM problems, in
the sense that the kernel hardly does a "panic" with bad
RAM, but applications disappear (crash) a lot easier,
and that helps hint that the hardware (CPU/mem/northbridge)
are not stable for some reason. If RAM is bad in
"just the right set of locations", all hell breaks
loose, and you can get a very wide array of symptoms.
But assuming RAM failures are random, the odds are
in your favor that the machine stays up.

The machine itself should have some sort of hardware warranty,
and then you'd need a "qualified service organization" to
get some part of it replaced under warranty. Typically
a Geek Squad would phone you and say "the motherboard needs
to be replaced", when they haven't a clue what's wrong with
it. They have some sort of centralized repair strategy, where
the machine could be shipped to another city for that
sort of thing. Whereas the local service "does OS reinstalls"
is more their speed. Not every shop of theirs has a
"hardware person", and if they catch a whiff of "hardware
failure", it might head off to another city.

A mom&pop does all of that themselves. But when it comes
to warranty work, I don't know what the bar is like for
"qualified service". I expect there's too many opportunities
for "warranty rip-off" to be allowing just anyone to do
warranty repair.

At the very least, I would check what my HP warranty is. Using
a Geek Squad is good if you wanted the machine back a little
faster I suppose. It shouldn't take them long to do their
"OS reinstall" schtick and then reach some conclusion about
what happens next.

Â*Â* Paul
Yup, it is $100 for diagnostics and $100 to repump the operating system.