Didn't you say you have an HP?
You don't have a complete computer, then. You only have what they allow you to have, until you flash the BIOS with a standard set of parameters.
A guy at work used to work for Dell and he has (quite illegally, gained from his corporate espionage efforts) a cross-reference to tell him which Dell (lying bastards!) identified BIOS matches up with which standard BIOS chipsets. He can go in and "FIX" some of the bastard Dell machines with this info.
His "lifelong goal" seems to be to acquire all the proprietary cross references, (he also has Compaq, Gateway and IBM but Dell and Compaq have abandoned this approach, in their newest models and IBM seems to be history) so he can punk all those companies who think that they are more important than the end users of their equipment. I support his efforts one hundred percent, but he has not been able to hack or steal the Hewlett Packard configurations, YET.
It's just a matter of trial and error and error and error, until you find what standard chipset was included in the box (it won't identify itself correctly - it lies and tells you HP bullshit when you ask). Once you do this, a typical update flash will set your computer to the latest configuration, with NONE of the HP nonsense left behind to deal with. (OH, you will have to format your hard drive, too, to get rid of them, completely)
I like your idea of replacing it with an Acer!
