HP 840G3 sound / display driver

[Matt Strickland]

Hi all,

Has anyone had issues with the sound or display driver on their 840G3 machines?

I am having users with intermittent issues, the common theme seems to be the 840G3 with Windows 10 (both tela/custom image) for me those that have upgraded to 1607 anniversary update.

The two issues I have seen are windows not reporting an audio device (it still exists in device manager as working, but I suspect audio services are not working) and unable to duplicate display because the display driver has reverted into safe mode (I have seen the screen flickering black while connected to a data projector). The users that switch between HDMI and VGA projectors are most prevalent.

I haven't had the chance to look at event logs yet - A reboot often solves, I think its a sleep/hibernate/resume issue.

I may have some 840G3's on Windows 1511 that are working fine but need to confirm.

Latest available Audio/Video drivers are installed.

Matt

[Patrick Dunford]

It's interesting to see display drivers mentioned as some of our 840 G2 users have had issues with VGA projectors that they seem to always have problems connecting to. Many of them are now using HDMI to VGA adapters on their laptops.

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[Kevin Whelan]

That G2 video bug happens here too,can work fine for days then suddenly when you select projector, dual the software shows as connected but nothing happens at all. A simple reboot fixes it everytime so I'm gradually training the staff to do that before they call for help.
Suspect its a sleep wakeup issue but good luck finding it. Hps video drivers have always had weird issues with projectors partly because they stick display ports on everything and there is a multitude or people complaining about intels specific versions having bugs that weren't in previous versions

[Alan at Wadestown School]

Hi Matt

I've got one of these too. EliteBook 840 G3, Windows 10 v1511, latest driver from the HP site. 

We get the problem when attaching an external monitor by HDMI.

> I think its a sleep/hibernate/resume issue.

At first I thought that too. But then I increased the idle-time-til-sleep and the problem kept occurring even before that time was reached. Then I saw in Device Manager that the display driver had crashed. My working theory is that it is a buggy Intel display driver - simple as that. I don't know what I can do about that though except wait for a driver update.

Alan

[Patrick Dunford]

Maybe there is an older driver version you can revert to?

[Simon Farrell]

For anyone having issues with the 840 G3, can you please give the below driver a go? Assuming you are not using it already...

-         - Conexant HD Audio Driver 2015 10.0.931.73 Rev.Q(13 Jul 2016) sp76702.exe

http://h20564.www2.hp.com/hpsc/swd/public/detail?swItemId=ob_171406_1

[Simon Farrell]

Hmmmm, it appears that driver below (10.0.931.73) is now listed on the HP support site, it wasn't a couple weeks ago. So the below may not be any help after all  :(

[Matt Strickland]

Hi Simon,

Yes I downloaded that driver on 8/9 but it was only then listed for one of the Folio laptops (840G3 wasn't specifically listed) but assumed it was for this machine.

Pretty sure it hasn't helped but the sound issue can take a week to arise, much like my stacked switch issue!

Matt

On Thursday, 15 September 2016 14:45:08 UTC+12, Simon Farrell wrote:

[Alan at Wadestown School]

> My working theory is that it is a buggy Intel display driver 

Now it looks like it's not just down to a buggy driver. I gave the teacher a different 840G3 laptop with the same operating system and display driver and it's not crashing. To me that suggests hardware issues.

That ties in too with my wife's colloquial report from her school. 'We get this problem too. It just effects some of the laptops and only with some projectors.

[Landyn Frisby]

We also have this issue with not only Elitebook 840 G2 but also G1 where some projectors just do not connect to laptop. 

Also come across an issue with Elitedesk DM 800 G1 on displayport sometimes fail to wake up the display.

A good thing to update at the time when you are doing drivers is to update the ME Firmware even if you do not use it. It is embedded into the chipset and making sure you update the ME Firmware can go a long way to solving "weird" issues which do not resolve simply.  

[Alistair Baird]

I got an email from HP this morning advising of a BIOS update for all Elitebooks... Maybe that may help.

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[Matt Strickland]

Ill look into the BIOS update as this is still ongoing for us. Seems its only a few machines but it could be only those few notice.

Yesterday same thing, looks like an Audio hardware failure, reboot and its working again.

Will try BIOS and see what happens. No Audio driver update unfortunately.

Matt

[Patrick Dunford]

We had the G1 issue with a number of VGA projectors. The school tried a few things including displayport to VGA adapters using the displayport output of the laptop.

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[Alan at Wadestown School]

We had this issue too. On two different Windows 10 840G3s but with the same projector. Updating to the latest BIOS and drivers didn't help (at the time last month anyway). Then I installed Windows 7 on one of the laptops and the issue seems to have gone away.

[ictdi...@kowhai.school.nz]

We have had ongoing issues with HP 840 G2s that were issued at the beginning of this year. It has affected 4-5 out of 20 machines. I have spent a LOT of time trouble shooting this including talking with dimension data and Spark - it certainly seems that on 'some' laptops the video driver repeatedly crashes. It originally started with those machines not being able to run a projector from the VGA port but progressed to any video/moving images crashing the system. Reinstalling the driver could fix it temporarily and using a VGA to Display Port adapter solved the problem for around 3 months and then it resurfaced. It should be noted that I had built a custom image for these machines using windows 10 in an effort to strip out all the bloatware that comes pre-installed.

The latest fix is that we have have resoftwared the affected laptops using a custom Windows 10 rapid deployment image built by Isometric (which has most of the HP preinstalled addons stripped out) along with a VGA to Display Port adapter - this has worked for the past month    https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/ADPJ5C3114/J5create-Display-Port-to-VGA-Adapter 

On a side issue we have had a number of battery / charger problems with these units (only 9 months old)... anyone else?

Here is some of the background discussion I've had with Spark in trying to solve this:

First conversation with senior Spark engineer: 

On the VGA thing… I have had our engineer grab an 840, re-image it with a base TELA image and test projector connectivity. He has not been able to replicate the fault – the VGA port works as it should when you remove the projector cable from the Displayport adapter on the RHS and plug it into the VGA port on the LHS. So to help the troubleshooting a bit more, would you please be able to answer the below questions?

 

1.    Are you running the TELA image the laptops are supplied with, or have you built your own image?

2.    What version of the BIOS are you running? Latest available here

3.    What version of the display driver are you running? Latest available here

4.    Does it make any difference if you plug the VGA connection in before turning the laptop on?

5.    Are you able to test with another external display device (e.g. a monitor)?

6.    What model of projector are you using?

 

 

Sorry to fire all those at you, I know you have done a fair bit of troubleshooting already, but I’m keen to get to the bottom of this and figure out what’s going on.

 

VGA in itself is not a particularly reliable standard (being analogue), and there are a lot of factors that can cause connectivity issues, but hopefully we can eliminate them one by one and figure out what’s causing your issues. I’m still pretty confident it’s not that laptops. The fact that you’ve had the motherboard swapped on one and it still failed points to either something external to the laptop or software causing the issue, rather than a hardware fault. It happening on other laptops backs that up.

Second conversation with senior Spark engineer: 

HP drivers can occasionally be fussy with the order in which they are installed, and the only way to figure that out is via trial and error. We’d still be keen to hear what version(s) of the driver you are using, just so we can keep track of what works and what doesn’t. We’ll still send you a USB key anyway.

 

The tech that showed up to fix the projector issues wouldn’t have done any testing in software because that’s outside the scope of their role. Software issues are explicitly excluded from warranty coverage, so when the tech shows up they assume that there is a hardware fault with the laptop and repair whatever component is likely to be causing the issue.

[Patrick Dunford]

Our Hps (840G1) all had Win7 and that hasn't really resolved anything with the projectors. The 850G1 (principal's laptop) had problems with a video driver (AMD?) that would crash it when resuming from suspend.

It looks like Intel's usual video chipset crap is probably at the root of these problems and I would suggest shifting to use of the DisplayPort as there is likely to be less willingness to continue supporting the obsolete VGA standard.

On 19/11/16 10:33, Alan at Wadestown School wrote:

We had this issue too. On two different Windows 10 840G3s but with the same projector. Updating to the latest BIOS and drivers didn't help (at the time last month anyway). Then I installed Windows 7 on one of the laptops and the issue seems to have gone away.

[Jim Watts]

Hi Matt,

Sorry maybe too late for you.

I had that issue, we got 11 HP840 G3s in August, fine until the anniversary update hit, and got the intermittent no sound device error. Didn't have any reported video errors, we do only have vga projectors here though.

After much trial and error, I found (in our case) applying this driver SP76702 Conexant High-Definition (HD) Audio Driver, sorted it.

http://h20564.www2.hp.com/hpsc/swd/public/detail?swItemId=ob_171406_1 

Hopefully helps you out.

Cheers

Jim