bios screen

umairarif · 03 Nov 2014

hello
my laptop recently had problems. it got stuck on boot manager screen which got fixed itself but then it stopped displaying any thing on screen. i am able to view it in tv via hdmi. it dose not show the boot screen on tv and shows when its on windows start screen. what i want to do is get in to bios and run hp hardware diagnostic tool. so is there a way to do it from desktop with some command? some devices in the device manager show not working properly and i want to find out if no display is caused by that? also few keys on key board are not working. if not sorted is it possible to do a clean win 7 install in this situation?

umairarif · 04 Nov 2014

any help?

Mark Phelps · 05 Nov 2014

Getting stuck during boot is often an indication of a failing hard drive -- especially if it is an older PC that has worked fine in the past. Your mention of devices not working properly, if they DID work properly in the past, is another indication of a failing hard drive, in that the device driver files are probably now corrupted.

Might help to know the make and model laptop and how old it is.

I think that HDMI driver doesn't kick in until Windows starts, so there simply may be no way to see the boot progress with the TV hooked up through HDMI -- but I leave that to others who have experience using a TV through an HDMI connection.

Keys failing on the keyboard could also mean hard drive failure, but I've found laptop keyboards to be short-lived. I'ver replaced keyboards on three laptops in the last five years. They generally don't cost much and take only a few minutes to replace. I would consider doing this first -- if you intend to keep using the laptop.

umairarif · 05 Nov 2014

Its hp pavillion dv7, its hot samsung 840 ssd about 2 years old. Laptop itself is about 3 years old. Only back space key next to delete is not working. It got stuck on boot manager screen just once and recovered itself. Now problm is that there's no display on screen. Rest is working great i can see via hdmi on tv.

Mark Phelps · 07 Nov 2014

My guess is that you're not going to be able to get the BIOS info to display on the TV because the HDMI drivers aren't loaded when you're accessing the BIOS setup functions.

I used an external screen with an HP laptop a while back, but it was through the VGA port on the back of the laptop, thus, everything showed up on the screen.

There is typically a function key combination you can press to redirect the video to an externally connected monitor. You need to check the documentation on your laptop to see what key combination that is.

If that does not work, then you're looking at sending the laptop in for professional repair -- or replacing the screen yourself, which does not guarantee that will fix the display problem.

gregrocker · 08 Nov 2014

Did you disable the laptop monitor in BIOS earlier? Or did the screen just quit working? What if you rightclick the desktop to choose Display directed to Internal monitor? Or just unplug the HDMI?

If you're porting the display to a TV then it will have some controls either on the desktop rightclick menu or in your Display controls to redirect the display each available monitor. See if you can redirect to the internal laptop monitor to see the BIOS prompts and setup screens.