My prebuilt computer crashed while I was trying to run a full Windows Defender scan, and now it stops at the BIOS startup screen. It displays the American Megatrends message for the B760M-C motherboard and says to press F2 or Delete for Setup or F11 for the Boot Menu. I've tried pressing the listed keys repeatedly, restarting the computer, and unplugging and reconnecting my keyboard, but nothing responds. Since this is a prebuilt system, I'm not sure what motherboard troubleshooting I can safely do. What should I try next?
3 Answers
First, check whether the keyboard is actually being detected before assuming the BIOS is frozen. Press Caps Lock or Num Lock and see whether the indicator light changes. If it does not, try a basic wired USB keyboard in several different rear USB ports. Bluetooth keyboards and some wireless models will not work during startup, and some keyboards only use their USB cable for charging rather than data.
The message can also appear when the system cannot find a drive with a bootable operating system. Try F11 to open the boot menu and see whether your Windows drive is listed. If it is missing, the SSD may not be detected or could have a connection or hardware problem. If the drive is listed, select it and try booting from it.
Make sure the function keys are not being controlled by a function-lock setting. Try holding Fn while pressing F2 or F11, or toggle the keyboard’s Fn Lock and then try again. A simple wired keyboard is still the best option for testing, since wireless and Bluetooth models may not initialize until Windows loads.
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