On May 26, a user on HP’s support forums reported that a forced, automatic BIOS update had bricked their HP ProBook 455 G7 into an unusable state. Subsequently, other users have joined the thread to sound off about experiencing the same issue.
This common knowledge regarding BIOS software would, then, seem to make automatic, forced BIOS updates a real issue, even if it weren’t breaking anything. Allowing the user to manually install and prepare their systems for a BIOS update is key to preventing issues like this.
At the time of writing, HP has made no official comment on the matter — and since this battery update was forced on laptops originally released in 2020, this issue has also bricked hardware outside of the warranty window, when previously users could simply send in the laptop for a free repair.
Overall, this isn’t a very good look for HP, particularly its BIOS update practices. The fragility of BIOS software should have tipped off the powers at be at HP about the lack of foresight in this release model, and now we’re seeing it in full force with forced, bugged BIOS updates that kill laptops.
I remember warning labels on BIOS updates that basically said that if nothing is broken, don’t do the update because the risk of bricking the device did not outweigh any potential benefits. That vendors are now pushing mandatory BIOS updates through Windows Update is terrifying.
Why can even touch bios from system? That sound like horrible attack vector. If can infect bios, no reformat or reinstall will remove virus.
attack vetor if the person has physical access to your device, or the bios connect to the internet, at that point fuck it
HP laptops are garbage. This is the hinge of my HP X360 laptop after 6 months of occasional use: https://i.imgur.com/LhZWBIt.jpg
How do these things not have unbrickable A/B firmware partitions by now? Even I have that on a $2 microcontroller. Self-test doesn’t pass after an update? Instant automatic rollback to the previous working partition.
It’s pretty ridiculous not to have a way of recovering from a failed update.
On my desktop, I just have to plug a flash drive with the BIOS image into a specific USB port and press a button on the motherboard. It doesn’t matter if the BIOS is broken and it doesn’t even require a CPU or RAM to be installed.
The article doesn’t say/clarify. Was it some crap HP software that performs driver updates, and it decided to force a bios flash? Or was it windows update itself?
If it was windows itself, holy crap, that’s a serious over reach on Microsoft’s part. Like “this is insanity windows needs to be removed” bad.
Years ago Windows used to not provide drivers. This lead to many users never downloading drivers for their devices. Users ran their devices for years without trackpad, Wifi and GPU drivers etc. The drivers were also scattered all over the internet.
These days vendors can supply Windows with drivers and even Bios updates.
It is very unlikely Microsoft pushed these drivers out themselves. HP likely provided the Bios update…
This is a classical example of user error.
They made the easily preventable mistake of buying HP.
