How to update HP BIOS in Manjaro?

Support
1

I am owning a HP machine (OMEN by HP 45L Gaming Desktop GT22-0xxx), and I would like to update the BIOS, but I found that HP only supports Windows officially.

I noticed a blog (Updating HP BIOS firmware from Liux | Frederik Himpe) illustrates how to do it in Linux. To put it shortly,

  • Extract the downloaded exe
  • Create a folder /boot/efi/EFI/HP/DEVFW
  • Copy the extraced file (.bin) into /boot/efi/EFI/HP/DEVFW/firmware.bin
  • Reboot and choose UEFI Firmware Settings.

I have little knowledge about BIOS related stuff, and I haven’t tried the method above because I think it might be risky. Can anyone please tell me whether this method work or not?

2

HP Consumer Desktop PCs - Updating the BIOS (Basic Input Output System) (Windows)
The first part is with Windows, the second part is without Windows, i.e. using the BIOS tools.
I’d copy the current BIOS first …
Edit - it says this method does require a windows machine to install the software, which then can create the BIOS update on a USB.

4

Thanks. Did you ever tried this method (“Update the BIOS with a USB flash drive”)?

5

Yes but recently (UEFI) on Dell and Asus rather than HP.

Is the computer under warranty? If yes, it should cover BIOS updates if following HP’s procedures, worth checking

6

Yes, it is under warranty now. I tried to enter “System Diagnostics” by clicking F2, but the UI there is different from the one shown in the document page (step 5 in Update the BIOS with a USB flash drive section). There is neither Firmware Management nor BIOS Management.

I think its “HP PC Hardware Diagnostics UEFI” is also specific to Windows. I found another instruction (Instructions to Update the BIOS/UEFI for an HP Laptop on Linux · GitHub) on how to install it on Linux.

7

…and another one

8

To get to BIOS management, the F-key to press on startup may be different for different models, your model should have it listed in a user guide on the hp site.

Looks like an easy way to do it, hopefully still works

9

Thanks again. It is really annoying that many vendors don’t officially support Linux. I will have a try tomorrow because there is no spare USB driver at my office now.

fwupd is a promising project, and I hope more and more vendors will publish official Linux firmware in the future.

10

Finally, I choose to use WinPE to update the BIOS, and in general, I think this method is the best. And all you need to do is to prepare a bootable USB.

11

I have updated the BIOS, but now the WiFi is inactive in Manjaro :sob: WiFi cannot be enabled after upgrading BIOS