What to do if the computer asks you to press F1 on startup

A fully functioning operating system boots 100% on its own, without requiring any user intervention. However, if certain problems occur at the beginning of the PC boot, a message appears on a black background that requires the F1 key to be pressed to continue. If this notification appears every time or prevents the computer from starting at all, you need to find out what has caused this phenomenon and how to fix the problem.

The computer prompts you to press the F1 key on startup

The request to press F1 when starting the system is due to different situations. In this article, we'll take a look at the most common ones and explain how to fix them by disabling the keystroke prompt.

It should be noted from the outset that the operating system in this case has nothing to do with the problem in question, since it is formed immediately after switching on, without reaching the OS startup.

Cause 1: BIOS setup failure

BIOS settings often suffer a hit after the computer shuts down abruptly or after the PC has been completely shut down for a certain period of time. Although the situations are generally similar, they are caused by different factors.

Enter BIOS

The easiest way is to save the BIOS settings again. The need for this can be indicated by an accompanying notification such as: "Please enter setup to retrieve BIOS settings".

1. Restart the PC and immediately when the motherboard logo appears, press the key F2, Fwd Or the one in charge of entering the BIOS.

   Read also: How to enter the BIOS of your computer

2. Once in the settings, do not change anything, press the key F10which is responsible for exiting with the saved configuration. In response to confirm your action, select "AGREE"..
3. Another reboot will begin, at which point the requirement to press F1 should disappear.

Resetting BIOS settings

An unexpected power outage or internal BIOS failure may cause a request for a "Press F1 to resume", "Press F1 to run setup" or similar. It will appear every time the computer is turned on, until the user performs a BIOS reset. Even a novice user will not find it difficult to reset the BIOS. Read our article on the different methods of accomplishing this task.

More information: How to reset BIOS settings

How to make the hard drive boot manually

When multiple hard drives are connected, there is a possibility that the PC will not be able to figure out which device to boot from. Fixing this is easy, and our website has a separate article that will help you set the desired hard drive to the highest boot priority.

More information: How to make your hard drive bootable

Disabling the floppy in BIOS

On older computers, the error looks like this A: Driver error appears most of the time for the same reason: the hardware is looking for a floppy drive, which may not exist as such in the system drive. Therefore, through the BIOS you must disable all the settings that in one way or another may be related to the floppy drive.

By the way, sometimes the advice above - change the boot priority - can also help. If the floppy drive is configured in BIOS first, the PC will try to boot from it and notify you with a message when it fails. Putting the hard drive or SSD with the operating system first will eliminate the need to press F1. If that doesn't work, you will have to edit the BIOS.

1. Restart the PC and at startup press F2, Fwd or another key to enter BIOS. There is a link just above with detailed instructions on how to enter it for different motherboards.
2. In the AMI BIOS, on the tab "Principal" find settings "Legacy Diskette A", click on it and select the value "Disabled".
3. Go to the section "Standard CMOS Features", find the article "Drive A" and select "None" (o "Deactivate").

   In addition, it can include «Quick start».

   Read more: What is "Quick Boot" in BIOS?

4. Save selected settings to F10After the automatic restart, the PC should boot normally.

Cause 2: Hardware malfunction

Now let's go on to describe the malfunction of the PC hardware components. The lines preceding "Press F1 ..." indicate which hardware component is failing.

CMOS Checksum Error / CMOS Checksum Bad

This message means that the motherboard battery, which stores BIOS settings, time, and date, is dead. This is evidenced by the time, day, month, and year constantly resetting to factory defaults and notification "CMOS date / time has not been set" with "Press F1 ...". To get rid of the intrusive message, you will have to replace it. Our author describes this process in a separate manual.

Read more: Replacing the battery on the motherboard

Many users receive this same message even though the battery itself is perfectly fine. This message can be preceded by "Floppy Disks Fail (40)". This type of error can be eliminated by disabling the floppy-related settings in the BIOS. Read how to do this in the "Disable floppy disk in BIOS" subtitle in Solution 1 above.

CPU fan error

The CPU fan is the cooler that cools the CPU. If your computer does not see this device when you turn it on, you should check that it is working properly.

• Check the connection. The cable may be loose in the connector.
• Clean the dust from the fan. This is where all the dust is deposited, and if the unit is clogged with it, it will not function properly.

  Also read: Proper cleaning of the computer or laptop from dust

• Replace the fan or refrigerator itself with one that works. It is possible that it simply failed and now the system does not allow you to continue booting to avoid overheating the processor that is left without cooling.

  Read also: How to choose a CPU cooler

Keyboard error / No keyboard present / No keyboard detected

From the name, it is clear that the computer does not see the keyboard, which ironically asks you to press F1 to continue. Check your connection, make sure the motherboard contacts are clean, or buy a new keyboard.

Read also: How to choose a keyboard for your computer

Here we also apply the option to remove the battery from the motherboard to reset the BIOS. Read more about this in the "Reset BIOS Settings" subtitle in Method 1, above.

Intel uCode CPU load error

This error appears when the BIOS cannot recognize the installed CPU - that is, the BIOS firmware is not compatible with the CPU. As a rule, this message is encountered by users who have decided to install the CPU under an old motherboard.

The solutions here are obvious:

Other causes of the error

A couple more examples you can find:

1. Hard drive with errors. If the boot sector and system are not affected by the errors, run a hard disk error check after pressing F1.

   Read More:
   How to check for bad sectors on a hard drive
   Troubleshooting Hard Drive Errors and Bad Sectors

   If the user fails to boot after pressing F1, they will need to perform a live boot and use it to scan and repair the drive.

   Read also: Instructions to burn a LiveCD to a flash drive

2. Unstable power supply. Power supply surges can not only lead to a message forcing you to press the F1 key, but can also lead to more serious faults. Check the power supply by following these instructions:

   Read more: How to check the power of your PC

3. Incorrect overclocking of the PC. While overclocking your CPU, you may run into the problem causing you to read these lines. As a general rule, overclockers who overclock through the BIOS run into this problem. The problem can be fixed by resetting the BIOS and removing the battery or shorting the contacts on the motherboard. For details, see Solution 1 above.

We've covered the most common, but by no means all, reasons why your PC may require you to press F1 at boot. One of the most radical methods is the BIOS reflash, we advise only those users who are sure of what they are doing.

Read more: Update your computer's BIOS

If your problem has not been resolved, please contact the comments, attaching a photo of the problem found if necessary.

Has this article helped you?