8-2 www.hp.com Technical Reference Guide
System BIOS
8.2 ROM Flashing
The system BIOS firmware is contained in a flash ROM device that can be re-written with new
BIOS code using a flash utility locally (with F10 setup), with the HPQFlash program in a
Windows environment, or with the FLASHBIN.EXE utility in a DOS or DOS-like environment.
8.2.1 Upgrading
Upgrading the BIOS is not normally required but may be necessary if changes are made to the
unit's operating system, hard drive, or processor. All System BIOS upgrades are available
directly from HP. Flashing is done either locally through F10 setup, the HPQFlash program in a
Windows environment, or with the FLASHBIN.EXE utility in a DOS or DOS-like environment.
Flashing may also be done by deploying either HPQFlash or FLASHBIN.EXE through the
network boot function. This system includes 64 KB of write-protected boot block ROM that
provides a way to recover from a failed flashing of the system BIOS ROM. If the system BIOS
ROM fails the flash check, the boot block code provides the minimum amount of support
necessary to allow booting the system and re-flashing the system BIOS ROM with a CD or USB
disk/thumb drive.
8.2.2 Changeable Splash Screen
✎
A corrupted splash screen may be restored by reflashing the BIOS image through F10 setup,
running HPQFlash, or running FLASHBIN.EXE. Depending on the system, changing
(customizing) the splash screen may only be available with asistance from HP.
The splash screen (image displayed during POST) is stored in the system BIOS ROM and may
be replaced with another image of choice by using the Image Flash utility (Flashi.exe). The
Image Flash utility allows the user to browse directories for image searching and pre-viewing.
Background and foreground colors can be chosen from the selected image's palette.
The splash screen image requirements are as follows:
■ Format = Windows bitmap with 4-bit RLE encoding
■ Size = 424 (width) x 320 (height) pixels
■ Colors = 16 (4 bits per pixel)
■ File Size = < 64 KB
The Image Flash utility can be invoked at a command line for quickly flashing a known image as
follows:
>\Flashi.exe [Image_Filename] [Background_Color] [Foreground_Color]
The utility checks to insure that the specified image meets the splash screen requirements listed
above or it will not be loaded into the ROM.
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