Hi! I'm new to this forum. I don't even know if I'm in the correct place. But, I did a search for "firmware" and this is where I wound up at.

My question is, what the heck is firmware? And, why is it that every time I turn on my computer (eMachine), and it goes through all the checking and stuff, every once in awhile I get this error message (a little baloon) that says that "firmware download failure". I cannot print anything from any program when that happens. I usually have to either do a system restore or today, I couldn't seem to get it to work no matter what I did, I finally went to the HP website and downloaded the driver for my printer (HP Laser Jet 1000). That seemed to do it, but I've had that happen before, and then after about 5 or 6 days, I wind up getting the same error again.

I don't know what the heck is going on and I don't even know what firmware is. I am really ignorant when it comes to computer stuff, so please have patience with me. Tell me what you think is going on and how I can fix it permanently,

Thanks so much!!

~~ Teri

Firmware in simple words is the software of a device which makes the device to work as it should.

Have you enable any automatic update of any device on your system?

(in reply to MissT)

Firmware is normally updated ONLY on demand, though some systems can "live update".

A few devices (common among USB ADSL modems) carry only a rudimentary boot firmware, and soft-load their operating firmware every time.

A rough description of firmware would be "the software that is part of hardware".

A motherboard has firmware - it's required to boot, and for some operations after ... updating it is a big thing.
A drive has firmware - for hard drives, almost never updated (other than to fix critical bugs), while optical drives have firmware updates to improve media support.

(in reply to Iggy)