Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Dealing with the lack of bootup with newer mainboards

sandeep · 11-08-2003, 12:52 AM

I've been pondering this for a while now, and figured there's enough fellow computer folk out here to enlighten me a bit.

On newer mainboards, a lot of the bootup is masked by just an image that says "Pentium 4 Motherboard" or something similar. Whenever I troubleshoot a friend's computer, I tend to run into those mainboards.

They don't respond to the usual DEL or F8 commands during bootups to get me into the position to deal with certain problems.

One example in particular that has really given me some grief is a buddy of mine bought a Dell laptop, and managed to mangle it up pretty nicely, software-wise. When it came to formatting, I needed to alter the boot sequence in the BIOS, but couldn't access the bios! I'm not a dumb guy, but this really drove me in circles. I tried connecting a USB floppy drive too, no dice.

Is there any way to disable this startup image, or to still get into the bios on these newer P4 mainboards?

I couldn't even get into the boot menu with good ol' F8.

Now, unless the DEL and F8 commands have been replaced, and I'm just too uninformed to have known about it... I don't think that's the case, but if it is, please do tell.

I don't have any specific info for you guys. It's just the newer mainboards where the bootup checks are replaced by a full screen image, then up comes Windows.

11-08-2003, 12:52 AM	#1 (permalink)
sandeep Insane	Dealing with the lack of bootup with newer mainboards I've been pondering this for a while now, and figured there's enough fellow computer folk out here to enlighten me a bit. On newer mainboards, a lot of the bootup is masked by just an image that says "Pentium 4 Motherboard" or something similar. Whenever I troubleshoot a friend's computer, I tend to run into those mainboards. They don't respond to the usual DEL or F8 commands during bootups to get me into the position to deal with certain problems. One example in particular that has really given me some grief is a buddy of mine bought a Dell laptop, and managed to mangle it up pretty nicely, software-wise. When it came to formatting, I needed to alter the boot sequence in the BIOS, but couldn't access the bios! I'm not a dumb guy, but this really drove me in circles. I tried connecting a USB floppy drive too, no dice. Is there any way to disable this startup image, or to still get into the bios on these newer P4 mainboards? I couldn't even get into the boot menu with good ol' F8. Now, unless the DEL and F8 commands have been replaced, and I'm just too uninformed to have known about it... I don't think that's the case, but if it is, please do tell. I don't have any specific info for you guys. It's just the newer mainboards where the bootup checks are replaced by a full screen image, then up comes Windows.