Aspire E5-576 “Press F2” message on startup isn’t showing.

CarolynKay

And pressing F2 doesn’t take me to the bios setup. Also, the caps lock/unlock and num lock/unlock indicators aren’t showing on the screen.

Don't know if these are all related. I'd like to fix them all.

JackE

With the laptop off, remove the charger. Insert a paperclip into the reset pinhole on the bottom for 30 seconds. Then plug the charger back in. Wait for the battery charge LED to turn from steady orange to steady blue. Then press and hold the F2 key and turn the machine back on. If the BIOS menu still doesn't appear, shut  the laptop off. Then press and hold the FN+F2 key at the same time and turn the machine back on. Report back with results.

CarolynKay

Thanks. There's a very tiny hole that's barely visible, but a paperclip will fit in it. I guess that's it.

When you say remove the "charger", do you mean remove the battery? Because removing the battery is no small task on this computer. It's sealed in with screws.

And does this kind of reset clobber my whole system?

JackE

Remove charger only. The reset shouldn't clobber  your system.

Easwar

Hi CarolynKay,

Try to do power drain,

1. Shutdown the unit.
2. Unplug the cables connected to the unit.
3. At bottom of the unit there will be a small tiny pin hole with a battery symbol close to it. Take a pin or a paper clip insert into it you feels like pressing a button hold it for 20-30 seconds. ​

CarolynKay

Thanks, all. Your suggestions fixed the problem of accessing the BIOS on startup, but I still don't see the "Press F2" verbiage on startup, and I still don't  see the screen notifications I used to see when changing caps lock or num lock.

Any ideas on fixing those?

JackE

Go back into the BIOS menu with F2 key.. Then press F9 to load BIOS defaults. Then press F10 to save settings and exit. Once Windows is up and running, open Control Panel. Search 'button'. Click 'change what the power buttons do' in left pane. Click 'change settings that are currently unavailable'. Scroll down and uncheck the box for fast startup if not already unchecked. Shut down Windows normally. Then turn it back on.

CarolynKay

Thanks, done. But still no "Press F2" message or notification of caps lock or num lock changes.

JackE

Open Control Panel. Search 'restore point'. Click 'create a restore point' in left pane. If System Protection is turned on in the box that pops up,  click System Restore button. Click next. Do you see an automatic restore point with a date/time stamp about when these notification changes happened?
 

CarolynKay

I appreciate the help, but I've been through so many rebuilds that I have absolutely no idea when they went away, and I'm not going to go back and back.

Thanks, but I'll just do without. There should be a fix that I can just click on and make them reappear, but apparently not.

JackE

If it happened within about the last 3-4 weeks, then the update's automatic restore point is probably still in there. It certainly doesn't hurt to check and the NOT apply it. The cache on the boot drive for each restore point is usually automatically purged after about a month or so to recover drive space. However,  I'm gonna guess from your description that a generic Intel mainboard driver was somehow installed at some point instead of the Acer OEM update at this link.  Generic device drivers often cause side effects due to proprietary OEM mainboards.

CarolynKay

Thanks, but I'm giving up. I just installed 21H1 and it's too big to stop and go back. That wasn't what caused the change. It happened before that. I was fighting other demons when it happened.

I'm done with this.

JackE

OK. That's part of the nature of the new and unimproved Windows rapidfire major update policies. The other demons you had were likely caused by an earlier major update, the restore point for which is long gone by now since it happened last fall. Restore points should be the first thing to look for when unexpected demons happen. Instead of trying chase generic drivers to fight the demons and perhaps unleash more new demons, it is often less stressful to simply reverse the Win10 update and temporarily block it until some future major update finally fixes it.