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Context: I have an HP Stream 8. Tried to reset it from factory settings, but it got unplugged and lost power sometime during the reset. Now when I power it on, I get an error message saying that the BIOS is corrupted and need to be updated.
It then attempts to update. Upon the completion of the update, it tries to restart, fails, and goes to an all black screen. It stays lit but black until you try powering it off. I even left it over night... it stayed on the entire time. If I power it off and on, still black. If I turn it on while holding the volume, it trys to update the BIOS again. The process repeats endlessly.
Diagnosis: The BIOS is utterly... well... janky.
What I have tried: / Turning it off and on (20 times). / Taking it apart and removing the battery cable from the motherboard port, then holding the power button to clear out any leftovers (standard flea power drain), then reconnected battery and powered on. Starts up into CMOS repair mode, and reboots. It boots to a black screen, sometimes a command line underscore blinks for a millisecond, but that's nothing new. (About 6-7 times.)/ Doing basic hardware overview. Everything looks good from what I can tell./ Googling it (138,344 times) / Attaching an OTG and playing around with hotkeys, holding F2, ESC, F10, etc. Sometimes I find some new navigation menu containing system info, but nothing useful. /
Causes: Some people say its a memory issue, others a CPU issue. Either way, as this type of tablet is a glorified smartphone, I can't really whip out another RAM, HDD, or whatever (my usual problem solving strategy), and I am no good at soldering so I can't replace the CPU.
Hypothesized Solution: Total reinstall of BIOS from an USB drive (If this is possible). At this point, I don't think the current bios can be saved.
The Best Part (Why my problem is unique) The only input into this device is one sing micro USB port. Using that, and an OTG cable, I need to make the magic happen.
My question: Can I reinstall the BIOS only using a USB flash drive, an OTG (micro USB to USB converter), and my [supposed] skills as an amateur computer engineer?
"Your not a noob if you know that you know nothing" - A contemporary translation of Socrates
Ragnvaldr
Posted 2018-05-26T00:03:34.670
Reputation: 90
You really like those funny "contemporary translations of Socrates" don't you!! "I'm so smart because I know I'm so stupid" is hilarious.... hahaha – Pimp Juice IT – 2018-05-26T01:13:54.013
Strange the bios got corrupted during a factory reset. – Moab – 2018-05-26T14:21:15.577
That's the only thing that I can think. That's when they became noticable at least. – Ragnvaldr – 2018-05-26T17:59:17.070