09NOV07 – We HP Pavlion ZV6000 owners are a loyal and thrifty bunch. Personally, I got mine in a RadioShack bundle including a killer camera that took the picture below and a mostly unmemorable printer. When examining RAM upgrades, I was startled to NOT find a second stick and so made an article about it to help others once I found it. The article is here. Now there’s a newer, meaner problem that’s beating us thrifty laptop users over the heads.

“laptop BIOS won’t boot with 1GB RAM”

This article will take a week to write. Today, ArtCarlos mentioned that installing a 1GB of RAM disabled his machine. I replied simply enough and then rebooted to examine BIOS with the thought that perhaps an upgrade would help. My ZV6000 BIOS reports the “Notebook Model” to be a ZV6*1*00!

Checking HP’s site and a memory site confirm that the two models should take identical sticks of RAM from 256 through 1024 MB and that both models support the latest BIOS update of version F.1C from HP.com My BIOS is F.1A meaning my machine is a candidate. So the stick of 1GB RAM I bought to accompany ‘Carl’ should work without a hitch. If it doesn’t, we’ll mess with BIOS updates which, frankly, I hate.

The laptop BIOS won’t boot with 1GB RAM search turned up far too many results about laptops that do not start, do not boot and do nothing after upgrading to 1GB of RAM almost no matter the maker and type including OCZ, Corsair and DDR 3200, DDR400, on Inspirons, Latitudes, Dimensions, Compaq models, etc. It’s dreadful. Trying to answer this question alone about RAM upgrades preventing boot up is like walking unexpectedly into a slasher-zombie flick.

I’m not looking forward to failing publicly, but let’s give it a shot…. Installation completed.