A fully functional operating system loads 100% on its own, without requiring any user intervention. However, if certain problems occur, already at the very beginning of the PC startup, a message appears on a black background requiring you to press the F1 key to continue. If such a notification appears every time or does not allow the computer to start at all, you should figure out what caused this phenomenon and how to fix the problem.

The requirement to press F1 when starting the system is due to different situations. In this article, we will look at the most common ones and tell you how to fix them by disabling the keystroke prompt.

It’s worth noting right away that the operating system in this case has nothing to do with the problem under consideration, since it is formed immediately after switching on, before the OS starts.

Reason 1: BIOS settings failed

BIOS settings quite often get lost after the computer is abruptly disconnected from power or after the PC is completely de-energized for a certain period of time. Despite the fact that in general the situations are similar, their appearance is provoked by different factors.

Login to BIOS


Resetting BIOS settings

An unexpected power outage or some internal failure at the BIOS level may cause the requirement to appear "Press F1 to Resume", "Press F1 to Run SETUP" or similar. It will appear every time you turn on the computer until the user performs a reset. BIOS settings. This is easy to do even for a novice user. Check out our article about different methods for solving this problem.

Let's do HDD bootable manually

When connecting several hard drives there is a possibility that the PC will not be able to understand which device it needs to boot from. Fixing this couldn't be easier, and we have a separate article on our website that will help you set the desired hard drive to the highest boot priority.

Disable Floppy in BIOS

On older computers, an error like A: Driver Error most often appears for the same reason - the equipment is searching for a Floppy drive, which system unit may not exist as such. Therefore, through the BIOS you need to disable all settings that in one way or another may be related to the floppy drive.

By the way, sometimes the previous tip can help - changing the download priority. If the floppy drive is installed first in the BIOS, the PC will try to boot from it and notify you with a message if the attempt fails. By exposing hard drive or SSD with the operating system in first place, you will get rid of the requirement to press F1. If this does not help, you will still have to edit the BIOS.


Reason 2: Hardware problems

Now let's move on to a description of problems in the operation of PC hardware components. You can recognize which component has a problem by looking at the lines preceding the inscription “Press F1...”.

CMOS Checksum Error/CMOS Checksum Bad

This message means that the battery on the motherboard that stores the BIOS, time and date settings has run out. This is confirmed by the time, day, month and year constantly being lost to the factory default and notification "CMOS Date/Time Not Set" next to "Press F1...". To remove the intrusive message, you will need to replace it. This process is described by our author in a separate manual.

Many users receive the same message even though the battery itself is fine. This inscription may be preceded by "Floppy disk(s) fail (40)". This type of error can be resolved by disabling Floppy-related settings in the BIOS. Read how to do this above, in the subtitle “Disable Floppy in the BIOS” of Method 1.

CPU Fan Error

CPU Fan - cooler that cools the processor. If the computer does not see this device when turned on, you should check its functionality.


Keyboard Error/No Keyboard Present/No Keyboard Detected

From the name it is clear that the computer does not see the keyboard, ironically suggesting that you press F1 to continue. Check its connection, the cleanliness of the contacts on the motherboard, or purchase a new keyboard.

RAM in a computer it plays the role of a temporary buffer for storing information, that is, when you start an application, it is partially loaded into RAM, therefore, the more memory you have, the more you can simultaneously open and work in several programs, for example, play a computer game game and listen to music at the same time.

A large amount of RAM is required in modern games, since they began to have large game spaces and in order to load them, those same megabytes of RAM are required.

RAM has two main characteristics: its quantity and the frequency at which it operates.
The amount of RAM is measured in megabytes; memory sticks can have sizes of 32,64,128,512,256,1024,2048 megabytes, etc. These values ​​do not directly affect the amount of possible information storage in it.

The frequency of RAM affects its operating speed, for example, if with a frequency of 600 megahertz the RAM will load 100 megabytes in 10 seconds, then with a frequency of 1000 megahertz it will perform the same operation in 5 seconds (the numbers are conditional, just to make it clear to you what is frequency used for?

Let's look at 3 types of memory DDR1, DDR2, DDR 3

There are different types of RAM, they differ in possible frequency and in the input to the motherboard. We will not take old varieties, we will consider only DDR1, DDR2, DDR3

DDR1 is already an outdated memory standard, possible operating frequency up to 400 megahertz.

DDR2 is the most common memory standard today, operating frequency up to 800 megahertz.

DDR3 is a new memory standard, operating frequency up to 1800 megahertz.

It is also worth considering that each type of memory requires its own motherboard, that is, if the motherboard has slots for DDR1, then no other memory will work on it.
However, you won’t even be able to install other memory into the slot, since they all have different sizes and each type of memory has a special cut (key) on the connector; it must coincide with the cut on the memory slot on the motherboard.
The key is also made so as not to make a mistake and not put the memory in the slot on the wrong side.

Although there were cases when people almost hammered an inappropriate memory into a slot, and even the key (I call it foolproof) did not stop them. As a result, smoke, short circuit, burnt RAM and motherboard.

Specifics of frequency substitution

Two more points should be taken into account, namely, if the motherboard supports DDR2 memory and the bus of the motherboard memory is 533 megahertz (you can find this out in the documentation for the motherboard), then if you install DDR2 memory in it with a frequency of 800 megahertz, then it will work equal at the bus frequency, that is, at 533 megahertz.

The second point is that if you install two memory sticks and each has different operating frequencies, then both of them will operate at the frequency of the memory stick with a lower operating frequency. For example, you installed two memory sticks, one with a frequency of 800 megahertz and the other with a frequency of 600 megahertz, in which case they will both operate at a frequency of 600 megahertz.


Why does my computer require you to press F1 when booting? One day you sit down at your computer, turn it on, but it doesn’t want to boot until you press the F1 button on the keyboard. It's still good if you own English, and understand what is written when loading. And many cannot even understand what happened and what actions are necessary in such a situation. First there is bewilderment, then fear, and then you grab the phone and start calling service centers. And it’s good if they tell you what to do in such a situation. But more often they give advice to either bring the computer to them, or they send a technician who, with a smart look, will sit at the computer for half an hour, or even longer, start your computer, charge you some money and leave without explaining anything. Most often this is exactly what happens. And starting the computer in this case is as easy as shelling pears. And it will take you 5 minutes to do everything.

Why does the computer require you to press when booting?F1

In my practice, such breakdowns, if you can call them that, occur quite often. It’s hard to call this a breakdown, but if you don’t know what to do in such a situation, then a small problem can grow into a big nuisance.

I had one friend who, instead of calling a technician, began to disassemble his system unit and change everything that could be bought in the store. As a result, he spent a lot of time and money, and still did not understand what was wrong with his computer.

He was simply doing what many of us do when we get sick. I tried all the medications without knowing the disease itself and its cause.

No matter how trite it sounds, but if you want to avoid such incidents, then be sure to study your computer, learn how to load it in critical situations, and clean it from dust.

Read in advance what you need to do if. Check hard drives on . And most importantly, do not spare money on antivirus programs.

If your computer does not turn on and requires you to press F1 when loading, then do not panic and do not blame yourself. Calmly look at the screen and try to read what is written there at the very bottom. You can rewrite the phrase and view it from another computer on the Internet.

  • Most often, the computer requires you to press the F1 () key if you turned it off the last time before turning it on, without waiting for all processes to complete. Or if suddenly the lights in your house were turned off and the computer turned off instantly.

This is tantamount to hitting a person on the head with something heavy, and then bringing him to his senses and demanding to read a poem. I doubt he'll be able to remember it right away.

That's why the first thing I always ask is how they turned off the computer. Many indignantly answer that it does not matter or begin to deceive that they turned off the computer as expected. They don't understand that in order to test a fault, it is important for me to know what the last actions were.

Another problem that occurs is when multiple hard drives are connected. In this case, you just need to set the correct boot priority in the BIOS.

  • If there is such a recording on the monitor - Press F1 to resume, F2 toSetup or Press F1 to resume, DeltoSetup , this means that the settings in the BIOS have gone wrong. Most best way, this is to reset its settings. To do this, you need to turn off the computer, open the system unit, find it on the motherboard and remove it for 10-15 minutes.

Usually it is enough to press the F1 key at boot and the computer boots.

You can try in BIOS Standard CMOS Features set value NO errors, then the system will continue booting despite any errors.

Most often, when booting, the computer writes the following:

  • CMOSbatteryhasfailed or CMOSchecksumerrorDefaultloaded– this inscription indicates that the battery on the motherboard is dead. Until you enter the BIOS and correct the date, the computer will not be able to boot. In any case, eventually you will need to replace the battery, otherwise you will continue to log into the system through the BIOS.

But what is described above does not always help. This means that most likely the problem is in the hardware itself. And this is no longer so easy to identify and eliminate. Sometimes the reason may be that the computer is looking for a floppy drive (floppy disk drive), which the computer simply does not have. Then you need to find all the settings related to this drive in the BIOS and disable them.

  • Inscription CPUFanError appears when the processor fan does not work or spins too slowly. Perhaps after the repair it was simply connected to the wrong connector on the motherboard.
  • There can be as many as three such connectors on the motherboard ( CPUFan, SystemFan And ChassisFan). The processor cooler must be connected to the connector CPUFan, which is usually located next to the processor socket.

In this case, the BIOS simply does not see such a cooler, and the system cannot start. Maybe the plug is simply poorly secured in the connector, or maybe the cooler is simply choking on it. There is only one way out - clean the system unit.

  • If such an entry appears on the screen - Keyboarderrorornokeyboardpresent, then your computer does not see the keyboard. Turn off the computer and check the keyboard connector, both on the system unit and on the keyboard itself.

Often these warnings can occur with a wireless or USB keyboard. It is necessary to disable auto-keyboard shutdown in the BIOS.

The computer requires you to press F1 when booting, if it does not have an antivirus program, and you have probably picked up some kind of “infection”. Then none of the above will help you. You need to scan your computer for viruses and eliminate them.

If you were overclocking the processor before this message, then first of all you are looking for the problem there.

There can be a lot of different mistakes, but I have described the most common ones. In the future, we will look at other computer messages.

Infrequently, but sometimes you can encounter a situation that is very ambiguous for many users, when when you turn on the terminal or laptop, an error message is displayed on the screen asking you to press the F1 key, although the user has not previously made any boot or login settings. Why does the computer ask you to press F1 and how to fix it? We will provide information about this in the article.

Some experts, not unreasonably, believe that some problems with motherboard, and it needs to be tested or even replaced. This is not always the case, and the average user can be offered several simple solutions, which, in general, do not apply to drastic measures. But first things first.

Why does the computer ask you to press F1 when starting up?

Despite the fact that this type of failure mainly refers to problems with installed hardware, this is signaled by the primary BIOS input/output system, which is directly responsible for checking it when the computer starts and saving the basic settings associated with it. As for the reasons why the system asks you to press F1 when you turn on the computer, they can be identified quite simply.

Just look at the accompanying message, which may indicate non-working or missing hardware (this is how the BIOS reacts to failed components).

When the computer starts, the system asks you to press F1: identifying symptoms of failures

However, the message does not always indicate the true reason, and if there is one, then it will be very problematic for an ordinary user without at least a basic knowledge of the English language to understand what is happening. In the simplest case, if the system asks you to press F1 when booting the computer, and the message about possible failures is missing, it is quite possible that the settings of the BIOS itself have gone wrong. This can be determined by the incorrectly displayed date and time. In some cases, the root cause may lie not in the installed equipment, but in the CMOS battery, which, as they say, is dying. As is already clear, you need to try to replace it.

Another problem is partial failure motherboard. This requires extreme measures with full testing at a service center. Finally, the notification may indicate a faulty component, and the computer asks you to press F1 to skip testing its functionality, which is often observed when connecting a faulty keyboard to terminals.

How to fix the situation in the simplest way?

Now, after finding out the main reasons and symptoms of this behavior of a computer or laptop, you can directly proceed to consider the simplest methods for eliminating the error. The first step is to enter the BIOS options, if possible. If this is not possible, you need to force restart the computer and log in after that.

After logging in, you do not need to change the installed options. You just need to exit and save the settings (F10). Surprisingly, this action helps quite often.

If this does not help, and the system asks you to press F1 again and again when you boot the computer, try changing the date and time by setting the correct parameters and saving the changes when you exit.

Manually resetting BIOS settings

If the previous steps do not help, go back to the primary system settings, find the factory reset option there (something like Load Setup Defaults), agree to the reset, after which a restart will follow.

However, it also happens that such actions do not give the desired effect, and when the computer boots, the system asks you to press F1 again.

In this case, you can try simply removing the CMOS battery located on the motherboard for 10-15 minutes, then inserting it into the socket and turning on the terminal. The settings will be reset automatically.

Actions with additional parameters of the primary I/O system

Some users who have encountered this problem report that sometimes a positive effect in eliminating the described problem can be achieved by changing some of the settings of the primary system.

In particular, we are talking about deactivating the Swap Floppy Drive and Boot Up Floppy Seek items by setting them to Disabled in the Advanced BIOS Features. After this, as usual, you will need to save the options and reboot the system.

What to do if the problem is in peripheral equipment?

If the system asks you to press F1 when booting the computer, and the message indicates non-working or problematic equipment, try reconnecting or replacing it. Quite often, similar situations can be found with mice and keyboards. On fixed terminals, if PS/2 devices are connected, you should also check that the cables are connected correctly to the sockets (they are marked with the appropriate colors). In case of using such external devices In theory, problems should not arise on laptops, but it is still better to check the functionality of the USB ports, as well as their inclusion in the BIOS settings.

Additional methods to correct the situation

Finally, if none of the above helps, it is quite possible that the main problem is not with the hardware, but with the primary system itself. In this situation, you can try to troubleshoot the problem by installing the latest firmware, which should be downloaded from the website of the motherboard manufacturer, laptop manufacturer, or BIOS shell developer. Unlike UEFI, it is a very labor-intensive process, and it is not recommended to do such things without special knowledge. True, some BIOS modifications provide firmware update items, even with detailed description performed actions.

Brief conclusions

As can be seen from the above, among all possible problems Clearly, two main ones can be distinguished: problems with the equipment and the primary system. To choose the optimal method for correcting the situation, the first thing you need to do is pay attention to the accompanying message, which may indicate the root cause of this phenomenon. In all other cases, you can simply save the BIOS settings without changing them or full reset to factory condition. However, if it is the motherboard that is damaged (especially when this can be observed visually), it is better to immediately take it to service center or your nearest workshop for full testing. Maybe only one microcircuit has failed, and replacing it will eliminate the failures. But further use of the “motherboard” if the warnings are ignored can lead to the failure of more significant components (for example, a processor or something else), and replacing them or purchasing a new motherboard, as they say, can cost you money. a pretty penny.

Many people, constantly using a computer, cannot always cope with various system errors and understand the notifications that appear on the screen. One fine day, the user may encounter the fact that at the moment of turning on, the computer requires pressing f1 when loading.

If such a message (loading f1) appears constantly, but the computer turns on after clicking, this is not yet a problem. It’s worse if, after pressing the designated key, another message appears on the screen. For those who speak English, there is still a chance to understand what happened. But for those who are only vaguely familiar with the language (from the school curriculum), it is not easy to figure out what really happened.


If you contact the service center, in the best case, they will send you an employee who, with a rather cunning look, will carry out “some action” lasting up to half an hour and demand payment, and in the worst case, they will offer you to bring the computer yourself. Although the problem is in fact easily solved without the intervention of third parties.

Let's look at the reasons why this message appears and how to fix the problem. First, let’s figure out what exactly the system is trying to “tell” us.

If a window like this appears when your computer boots up


and after pressing F1, the computer boots further as if nothing had happened, and performance is not affected, the interfering confirmation can be disabled as follows:

Press the Del or F2 key while loading. The following window will appear:


Press F10 and agree, confirming with the Enter key.

If the message disappears after a reboot, everything is fine. Most likely, the problem was a temporary failure, or a sudden power outage of the computer. Now, let's try to determine the reason, based on what is written on the screen, at startup, if the computer again asks you to press f1 during boot.

CMOS battery has failed


The message has not disappeared, which means the best thing to do is open the computer and find a battery like this.


It is responsible for setting the time, date and BIOS settings. If it fails, then the system menu and date settings are constantly lost and the system prompts you to press the F1 key every time you boot. In this case, simply replace the battery with a new one.

Also, when removing the old one, leave the computer for 20 minutes without the battery. This will reset any modified BIOS settings, eliminating another problem that may arise.

As a rule, a message about a low battery may be displayed with the phrase “CMOS checksum error”, pay attention to this.

CPU Fan Error


This message indicates a malfunctioning fan that cools the processor. Most likely, it has failed (and needs to be replaced) or was not connected correctly after a recent computer repair. In this case, the system will not allow you to turn on the computer, since further loading of the system may cause overheating and complete failure of the processor.

This problem is solved by replacing or switching the fan to the required connector on the board.

Keyboard error or no keyboard present


This phrase on the screen means that the PC does not see the connected keyboard. This happens if the contacts move away from the connector or when the keyboard fails. The problem is solved by inspecting the connectors and concomitantly cleaning the board from dust or purchasing a new keyboard.

Don't forget to remove the keyboard auto-off option in the BIOS menu. With some input devices it works automatically.

Another way to remove the constant requirement to press the F1 key is correct setting Boot Priority section in BIOS. As a rule, due to the incorrect sequence of loaded devices, this error also occurs.

This is not full list errors. We looked at the most common ones. There are many others, such as Overclock (an error caused by a user increasing the speed of the processor).

The problem can also arise due to viruses. In this case, there is nothing left to do except clean the disk with an anti-virus utility or completely reinstall operating system. By the way, you can reinstall the operating system not only in a standard way, but also alternative ones - without data loss. You can find out more about how to do this from.

In addition, our company provides tablet repair services. Our company's employees will repair your tablet as quickly as possible.

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