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Accessing Compaq Bios

By Jeffrey Howard
All rights reserved unless noted otherwise

My Compaq Presario did not come with documentation on how to access the BIOS setup. Doing so is useful for setting up new drives and changing the system clock time. When I checked Compaq's website, I found many documents about the Presario, but it took a lot of digging to find out how to get to the BIOS setup. While booting, most other systems say something to the effect of, "Press F1 to access SETUP."

Platform

I don't know what BIOS chipsets are used in which Compaq computers. I can only say with certainty that this worked for me. There should be little risk in trying on other machines, though. Worst case, the system will boot normally.

Solution

Reboot the machine. When the company name, Compaq, displays in big red letters on the Presario's screen, a cursor should appear in the upper right hand corner of the screen. Press F10, and instead of booting normally, you should see the setup screen for the Compaq's BIOS.

Someone, in response to seeing this page, told me that some Compaq machines have F12 as a BIOS setup key. If F10 brings you no joy, it's worth a try. Another person just recently suggested Ctrl + F10 for newer models.

An Aside

I hope this page is helpful to you, but please take note that I haven't owned a Compaq computer in several years now. I cannot tell you how to use Compaq's BIOS to sort out IDE drive slave/master settings, flash your BIOS with an upgrade, circumvent a BIOS password, or otherwise troubleshoot your Compaq's BIOS-related problems. For these questions, try Compaq technical support.