FYI: How to get into the BIOS on an Acer Aspire X1300

[mikeymikec]

My usual strategy is to press the appropriate key (in this case 'delete') once every second the moment the keyboard lights flash, seconds after switching the machine on, however this machine is odd in two ways:

1 - the keyboard lights flash once in the first split second after switching the machine on, then again a few seconds later. You have to press delete immediately after the first keyboard light flash; I'm guessing that keyboard inputs are ignored after the second flash until after the BIOS starts trying to boot from a device (as the keyboard works fine after that point).

2 - If you reboot the machine you cannot access the BIOS, you have to switch it off and back on again.

 

[LTC8K6]

May need to disable fast boot in the BIOS?

 

[mikeymikec]

My initial wording of this post included the fact that this computer is a Vista-era one, so if that option is present I imagine it's the old option of "do you want me to check the memory three times slowly or just once rapidly", but if I need to I'll have a look around for it and see how the system reacts.

 

[LTC8K6]

Yeah, you should be able to get the screen that tells you which keys to press to get into the BIOS or the boot menu, etc.

 

[mikeymikec]

Yeah, you should be able to get the screen that tells you which keys to press to get into the BIOS or the boot menu, etc.

The thing is, I already knew which keys to press because it sometimes shows that screen on bootup (presumably depending on whether the monitor felt like waking up in time), it just wouldn't accept the keyboard input at the point I expected it to.

 

[LTC8K6]

Yes, it does have a "Quick Power On Self Test" enable/disable setting in the BIOS. Whether that will help or not, I can't say.