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Old December 15th, 2004, 10:28 PM
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jtdoom jtdoom is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2001
O/S: Windows 8 Pro
Location: Belgium, East Flanders
Posts: 5,990
Hi,

there are times one has to get into BIOS setup for troubleshooting.
Most new clone systems allow you to enter the CMOS/BIOS by pressing the 'Delete' key during power up.
The key to enter BIOS is usually shown when you power up the computer.
The manual usually tells you what key(s) you have to use.
You may NOT see this info, since some BIOSes have a setting to turn BIOS prompt OFF.

Your machine may hide a lot more than this.
There is another setting like QUIET boot option (aka SILENT boot, aka show OEM LOGO).
Turning QUIET boot option OFF gives you a chance to see what is going on while the system is powering up.
Recommended.

Turning QUICK boot option OFF, will do a more extensive memory count/test.
(This is not a deep test, but it can show memory errors.)
You'll want to turn this back ON after a while, for boot time becomes much longer.

Turning on REFRESH CONFIGURATION DATA (aka NVRAM refresh) can help a lot when you are troubleshooting after hardware was added. After it refreshed the data stored in CMOS, this will turn itself OFF again.
(This is one of the things you ought to try when you have mup.sys error)

Anyway, there are times you want to get in BIOS setup.
This is done by pressing a key or key combination right after you power up or restart.
Since you may not have the manual, and may not see the info on screen, let's make a list.

The DEL key was already mentioned.
There are OTHER Common BIOS access Keys, and key combinations.
(you push these keys soon as your computer begins to power up)
F1
F2
F10
CTRL ALT S
CTRL ALT Enter
CTRL ALT Insert
CTRL ALT Esc

If you have an older system or laptop some of the following may help you to enter the BIOS.
Press Esc (Toshiba and some others)
Press F1 (Hewlett Packard Pentium Systems / Intel after recovery flash.)
Press F2 (NEC and INTEL mobo normal boot)
Press Insert (IBM PS/2 with reference partition)
Press Tab (Emachine)
Press reset button twice (some Dells)

Ctrl S (Phoenix)
Ctrl Ins (some PS/2s when pointer at top right of screen)
Ctrl Alt + (Misc computers)
Ctrl Alt ? (Some PS/2s, such as 75 and 90)
Ctrl Alt Enter (some Dell)
Ctrl Alt Esc (AST Advantage, Award, Tandon, Many AST 486's)
Ctrl Alt S (Phoenix)
Ctrl Alt Shift + Num Pad Del (Olivetti PC Pro)
Ctrl Shift Esc (Tandon 386)

Compaq
Generally Compaq Setup can be entered by hitting the 'F10' key when booting up.
As soon as you see the cursor go to the upper right hand side of the screen, hit 'F10'.
Compaq setup program resides on a small partition on the hard drive and if you have fdisked and reformatted or installed a new hard drive you will need to use the Compaq setup program from "Compaq Setup Download".

IBM ThinkPad using IBM BIOS (Early Models): Press CTRL-ALT-INS when cursor is in upper-right corner of screen.
ThinkPad using IBM BIOS (Later Models): Press and hold F1 key while powering-up laptop
ThinkPad using Phoenix BIOS: Press CTRL-ALT-F11 from DOS prompt
Packard Bell Early models (386,486) require the sequence Ctrl ALT S at any time

To enter a DELL BIOS setup..
Dell 400 => F3, F1
Dell 4400 => F12
Dell Dimension => F1 or F2 or DEL
Dell Inspiron => F2
Dell Latitude => Fn F1 (while booted)
Dell Latitude => F2 (on boot)
Dell Optiplex => DEL

bootcards
(NICs with intel boot loader for example) ctrl S
adaptec SCSI card with bootrom ctrl A
highpoint hotrod cards CTRL H

troubleshooting after mishaps with BIOS
I recalled Postcode wrote some good tutorials, and this links to the tutes index
http://www.cybertechhelp.com/html/tutorials/index.php
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