It seems that you are not alone in this problem, according to this HP Forum page

https://h30434.www3

.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Operating-System-and-Recovery/System-Board-00A/td-p/6686090

Unfortunately, whether deliberately or because the original poster(s) couldn't be bothered to follow up on tjeir help request, the cause of the problem is not shown.

It sounds like a board failure to me, possibly in an area of non volatile bios memory, that is no longer accessible.

The Thread above was moved to a new unique thread which led ME to a completely new subject ...

Moved: Re: System Board (00A)

Will continue looking for answers

 

Update ... another answer from a Google search.

Why does my HP laptop say product information not valid?

You might see this message before the Computer Starts, you may program the bios many times but the error has not removed! The message shows that the serial number is not entered, or entered incorrectly, after replacing the system board or other component information manually, the problem solves.
Jun 25, 2016

YouTube › watch
How To Fix Product Information Not Valid Error On HP Notebooks

 

Well, after much searching, the answer is this is something that only an HP authorized shop can fix and that the fix would cost over $300. That's more than the laptop is worth so time to buy another laptop. In fact, I have another HP laptop..which represented at the time I bought it and still all over the internet, was upgradable from 4 Gb to 8 GB. This turns out to not be the case... so I'm stuck with this laptop that is so slow it's not worth using. So much for buying HP products.
I started building my own PC's decades ago for this very reason... Like Forrest Gump said... Buying a laptop is like a box of chocolates.. you never know what you're gonna get.
Thanks to all of you for your help. I truly appreciate it.

 

I would suggest that the price is high to deter anyone from thinking about getting it repaired. Should anyone be so enamoured as to ask HP to do that repair, most likely it would result in an "We regret that parts are no longer available for this outdated device, suggest you purchase on of these newer models."
From experience and reading between the lines, if any device was to last a "users" lifetime, manufacturers would soon run out of sufficient sales to keep their production running, especially now that the world seems to have peaked population wise and the birthrate has slowed to rates where there are more people dying than those being born.