As i already said, i have tried another HP ps/2 keyboard, as well as a usb wireless one, neither have solved the problem. It makes sense that i cant enter BIOS because the CPU cant read the keyboards at all. When the comp is off and i press an arrow key, it turns on, so i know it works, yet after it is on, its not working.
I've come very close, if i cant get the keyboard to work there is nothing i will be able to do to fix it (the keyboards work on my comps, just not on my friends)
Make sure the power is completely off. Turn the power back on. Try using Esc key, F1, or the delete key. If you press the wrong key, it will give yoiu a keyboard error indicating an option to press the correct key. I'm pretty sure one of those keys will work on an emachine.
Let me know.
Apparently there isn't a book available on line for this computer. The only other option is to contact technical support
At this link
Do you know if the BIOS is locked out by a password? Some Notebooks have that turned on as an option to prevent the machine from being stolen and having the thief go through the contents. I know mine is that way.
Usually if the boot order is set for Cd first under most circumstances the hard drive will be a secondary device. If it isn't able to boot off the hard drive, you might have to restore Windows.
If you the CD in, you can see if the hard drive is detected just before it installs it.
I don't think swapping the keyboard and mouse plugs are going to help. Do you have a spare keyboard with a PS2 plug on it?
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i've already tried those things--nothing.
im sure ill be able to fix the problem myslef but i just need to know how to enter BIOS
It may be, but how would i be sure? It's a desktop, and i dont think many desktops have BIOS password protected.
I may try tech support, but i want to try myself before doing this.
I will try the following key combos:
Ctrl-Alt-+
Ctrl-Alt-Enter
Ctrl-Alt-Esc
Ctrl-Esc
Alt-Esc
Ctrl-Alt-Ins
Ctrl-Alt-S
Page up
Page down
Pressing and holding Insert
If none of these work, i have an XP cd. The computer im trying to fix keeps wanting to run of a cd, so maybe this might work? how about if i make an MS-DOS startup disk on a floppy with my computer? Will these things help me into starting the comp?
I dont think the hard drive is set as any boot device. There are two cd drives, one for cds and the other for dvds i think. The third might be floppy, then possibly the last could be none. Still, maybe even floppy is not set as a boot device. Because when it starts, it says:
boot from cd:
Then u wait (time could be from 1 second to 1 minute. somehow its different every time). then it says again:
boot from cd:
Then it just becomes black. for that reason i think that the two cd drives might be set to boot, but nothing else (otherwise it might have said like boot from removable drive or something)
Should i try the xp cd? When this was occuring, there was already a cd in the drive, so i removed it, but no difference.
Well, i'll try it, hopefully something good will happen.
It seems clear now that the real problem is that the cpu is unable to read the keyboard after the computer starts. We know it is in working condition because if we press a directional arrow key, the computer will go from off to on. However, the original boot device should have been set to hard drive, but it somehow has managed to go to DVD drive as boot 1, CD-RW drive as boot 2, Floppy A as boot 3, and either no boot 4 or hard drive as boot 4. I tried an XP cd in both cd drives, the CPU could not boot up. Then i tried an older win 98 bootup disk. This you could call "successful", the CPU read it and was able to give the options: 1. boot from hard drive, 2. Boot from cd-rom. From here i knew the keyboard was not being detected, because i was unable to try and select either one. As far as another keyboard, i tried an HP one i know to be in working condition (ps/2) and a wireless usb one, which is also in working condition. Neither of them could be detected, and i could not select "boot from hard drive" or even "boot from cd-rom". For the same reason, it is impossible to enter BIOS because the keyboard and mouse are not detected. I have even tried switching the two PS/2 plugs (mouse w/ keyboard and vise versa), as instructed by someone else. This has not helped. If i am able to make the keyboard and mouse detected in any way, i will be able to enter BIOS and fix the problem.
Please help me in figuring out this problem.
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