unfortunately-- none of the ``easy'' solution [like passing kernel options] have appeared to work.
I do appreciate the feedback though-- and after following some of the threads that Tyler handed me-- it looks like I've got the same problem that many others have seen with ATI chipsets... and that I need to brace myself for a nice kernel compile. It's been 3+ years since I've had to recompile a kernel-- so I'm definitely a bit rusty-- but hey, if it fixes the problem it'll be worth it... I'll throw in the correct drivers for the video while I'm at it.
Also-- Peter Howe recommended the bootdisk.com site. a very interesting site-- unfortunately-- I'm a little scared of using a Dr. DOS bootdisk when HP specifically mention winXP-- not sure if the winFlash util they give requires some of the XP api's etc...
...one interesting thing I came across though-- the FreeBIOS. [http://freebios.sourceforge.net/]
Not sure if anyone has any experience with this-- but here's what I'm thinking...
I've currently got bios F.17 on my machine. Current bios is F.19. I'm thinking I can download/compile the FreeBIOS utilities. It appears that they have utilities for reading and writing bios images. Well-- If the util can read out my F.17 bios and say the cksum is the saem as the bios image I get from hp-- then there may be a good shot of the utility being abel to write an image.
To get the images from hp-- I believe the .exe files they have are self extracting zip files that contain the winFlash utility and the bios image.
it's an idea [that seems a little more fun -- and SCARY than installing winXP for a short spell]. I guess if I totally fubar the system I can take it back to compUSA-- excercise the warranty support and claim that [somehow] the power glitched [on a laptop with a battery] while I was flashing the bios.
Justin Gedge .-----------------------------------. | This has been a P.L.U.G. mailing. | | Don't Fear the Penguin. | | IRC: #utah at irc.freenode.net | `-----------------------------------'
