Starting Windows freeze on battery power.

[motc7]

Hello, this will be long, so please bear with me.

A few weeks ago on my brand new HP EliteBook 8730w I noticed a strange thing happening. When starting up the computer on battery power, it would freeze on the Starting Windows screen. On Battery power, I could boot into Safe Mode, and Safe Mode With Networking just fine, just not normal mode.

I haven't installed any new hardware.
I narrowed it down to the fact that when I connected the AC power, it would not freeze on that start screen. Fine, new motherboard right? WRONG!

Replaced motherboard, and right in front of the tech's eyes, it did the same thing.
Sent it back, they determined the RAM was bad.
I got it back, and it worked for about a week and then bam! Started happening again.


This morning, I restarted my computer FIVE TIMES in a row on battery power and the same original issue occurred.

I then unplugged all USB devices and tried them one by one.

Keyboard checked out, and then the mouse checked out just fine.

So for now it's booting properly, but I wondered if

A. Has anyone else experienced this problem?
B. What in sam hill could it be?

I called my service guys and they as a last resort are going to change the proc, but I told them that if this is a recurring issue, I think that it's just a defective computer. Could be the wiring, etc. Who knows!

We have other Elitebooks and this is the only one screwing up.

Edit: Oh yeah, it's not the power supply or the battery, those were eliminated early on. And it's not the RAM.

 

[motc7]

no takers on this? Speculation?

 

[motc7]

Hello folks. I'm back and I really need your help.

My personal computer, HP8730w is working like a champ now. however, in my office we have another HP 8730w doing the same thing as mentioned in this thread, but it does get past Starting Windows, and then goes to a black screen, then I see HD activity and then nothing. It never boots to Windows on battery power, but with AC power, working fine.

Tried different battery, didn't work like last time, tried changing out RAM, didn't work. Technicians are looking to replace the Motherboard and the proc, but here is the kicker.

On that same machine, we installed Windows Vista SP1 and we do not have the same issues on startup. It works just fine.

I'm basically remiss to now believe it's a problem with the hardware solely as it is a problem with Windows 7 and the ACPI perhaps? Any help or ideas are appreciated.

 

[motc7]

I, or rather, we have solved our own issue.

Apparently in this model of laptop, there is something called the UEFI which is installed on a separate partition by default when installing everything. In the BIOS, it checks for this somehow and if it's not installed, the battery power bootup will not work.

We simply downloaded this program and it worked. Again, this is not something embedded on a chip, but a program on a partition on the HD.

As a test, we formatted all partitions with Killdisk and just installed Win 7 Pro, and then we powered down and booted on battery power. Immediately the problem returned, but after installing the UEFI download from HP, problem resolved.


Hopefully this helps someone out there.