I have a Compaq Presario CQ61-410US (WA974UA) notebook running Windows 7 that sometimes halts, the screen goes black with no text, and the Caps Lock LED and Num Lock LED flash in unison the error code of '2' (BIOS corruption failure). There are no beep sounds. I can turn the notebook off by holding the power button down until it shuts down. Then when it starts up, it goes right back to the black screen before the setup splash screen, i.e. no POST, and the LEDs flash the error code of '2'.
I cleared the lockup by using HP's notebook power reset process described in the HP doc "Computer Does Not Start and the LEDs Blink or the Computer Beeps."
The notebook was already at the latest BIOS version, F.15. But I re-flashed the BIOS with version F.15 to be sure the BIOS was not corrupted. I also then set the BIOS to the default values. But the black screen lockup occurred a 2nd time a few days later when the notebook was in sleep mode after sitting idle with only the email program Thunderbird running.
While the power reset gets the notebook going again, the underlying problem remains. What do you advise to keep the notebook from locking up again?