HP Pavilion DV6 Laptop - Start up Problem

LucianH

LucianH wrote: »

I'm a bit apprehensive about doing a BIOS upgrade in case it totally fries it.

I'll give it a go at the weekend though and report back.

OK - Did a BIOS refresh and it didn't fry it but it also didn't solve the problem.

BUT, after more investigation I have now fixed it - and it was annoyingly simple (the word Doh! springs to mind). I've turned off fast start-up!

What I had noticed was that if I did a command line shutdown (shutdown /s) it then booted up OK but a windows shutdown caused the problem. What confused me was that the BIOS was behaving differently between the two shutdowns. Following a controlled windows shutdown then the "press esc to enter setup..." option was not provided - but it was when a command line shutdown or hard power down was performed. This was why I was thinking it was a BIOS problem. However, it's now obvious nothing to do with the BIOS (you were right fishybusiness).

It was only when I had put a shortcut on my desktop to do the command line shutdown, and I went into the control panel to see if I could remove the windows shutdown option from the start menu, did I see the fast start-up option. Before that, I didn't know it existed (Doh! again)

What I still don't understand is what windows does when it's set for fast start-up to tell the BIOS to bypass the "press esc to enter setup.." bit. Although this is nothing to do with the actual problem, I'm just curious. I also don't know why my old, but trusty laptop doesn't like fast start-up.

Anyway, thanks to all those who took an interest and provided suggestions :beer:

Jivesinger

LucianH wrote: »

What I still don't understand is what windows does when it's set for fast start-up to tell the BIOS to bypass the "press esc to enter setup.." bit. Although this is nothing to do with the actual problem, I'm just curious. I also don't know why my old, but trusty laptop doesn't like fast start-up.

With Fast Startup enabled, a 'Shutdown' isn't a true Shutdown; it's a form of Hibernate.

So presumably the BIOS decides that you have a running session which is just Hibernated, and doesn't let you do anything to mess up that session, such as booting from another device.