Am having serious problems with my 4540s, which is about two years old. The bios appears to be totally disfunctional. I cannot get in via Esc, nor by pressing the key which I want, such as the F9 key to select boot device. The machine runs Ubuntu linux and I discovered that I have removed both the HP_TOOLS partition and the Recovery partition. I have now reconstituted the HP_TOOLS partition, but cannot fix the bios.
The machine indicates that the hard disk is faulty, although I can read it apparently without problem on my Mac. However the machine will not hop over the hard disk to try and boot from either the internal CD/DVD drive nor from a usb CD/DVD drive. I have not yet tried a usb stick.
After a period of running, I found I could not, for example, delete emails in T-bird, clicking on an icon would not open the program and I could not close some programs. Occasionally the only way to turn off the machine is by holding down the power button. At the present time it will not start at all, but just cycles through the simplified hardware check, and then sits there with the HP logo on the screen when I exit the test.
Removing each of the 4GB memory chips and/or placing them in an alternative slot has not made any difference.
I would appreciate any help with further tests which I may be able to perform in order to identify the problem. I'm wondering if it can be the motherboard, since I assume the bios sits there. However, I'd like to be a good deal more certain before I think about buying a new mobo.
TIA