I've been dealing with a persistent boot issue ever since I built my PC almost two years ago. Every morning, I have to press F1 or F2 at startup, and usually, I have to do it twice before it eventually boots. Recently, things have taken a turn for the worse. One morning, after pressing F1, my screen stayed black, and I didn't get prompted to press F1 or F2 again like I normally do. I noticed that the GPU light wasn't on, and the motherboard displayed a red and orange light that won't go away. Some days, it boots up and asks me to press F1 again, but disabling Precision Boost Overdrive hasn't helped. I've tried a few things, like leaving it on with the warning lights, resetting the CMOS, and updating the BIOS, but nothing has worked. I really don't want to mess with the memory sticks unless I have to, as I'm not very experienced in PC building and would rather not risk damaging anything. I'm starting to think it might be best to get a professional to look at my setup.
3 Answers
Also, make sure your boot order in BIOS is set correctly to prioritize your OS drive. And you might want to run some commands through CMD if you're up for it, though that’s a bit more advanced.
It sounds like your motherboard could be confused about the boot sequence. That F1/F2 prompt usually means it's having trouble detecting your boot drive or the CMOS is failing. Definitely try swapping in a new CMOS battery instead of using an old one. If that doesn't help, consider changing the slot of your boot drive. The red and orange lights indicate issues with the CPU and RAM, but they might not be causing your boot drama. Just keep an eye on that! Maybe also give your PC a good cleaning.
And don’t forget to check your boot drive's connections! Sometimes a loose cable can cause boot problems like this.
I had a similar experience where it was trying to boot from an empty drive. I'd recommend unplugging all secondary drives, keeping only the one with your OS connected. This will help figure out if there’s a problem with the Master Boot Record (MBR). If that doesn’t solve the issue, reinstalling Windows might be needed. Less hassle than constantly messing with BIOS!
Good point! Replacing the CMOS battery is definitely the first thing to try. If you're okay with it, cleaning out dust can really help too, especially if it's been a while.