How to apply a bios update to the HP 8540w

I am primarily posting this to increase visibility.  I had many problems trying to apply the most recent bios to my 8540w, I always got an error that “SYSTEM DOES NOT CONTAIN THE NECESSARY WMI SUPPORT FOR THIS VERSION OF HPQFLASH” and something about a version 4…

This is trying to apply version F.20…

Turns out, I had a critical HP service disabled…

If you start this service up and try to re-apply BIOS, it should work.

HP support and documentation on this issue is sorely lacking, the only way I found this was by this forum post for a different machine…

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Hardware/How-to-update-BIOS-on-Compaq-615/m-p/488329

So, many safe travels to you all out there.

 

Jeff

Comments

• Anonymous
  November 11, 2012
  Thanks!

• Anonymous
  April 23, 2014
  Thank you for sharing your knowledge. Your post is truly much MUCH appreciated.