My dearest,

I just got myself a lil’ HP Elitedesk 800 G2 mini and am all set to run my home server on there. But I have troubles entering the UEFI menu. I don’t know what they did with Windows 10, but I can’t get there the usual way (i.e., hitting random f-buttons or esc during startup). I checked out the online Windows support and found this link with options to access the UEFI menu from within Windows:

https://www.isunshare.com/windows-password/four-methods-to-access-uefi-bios-setup.html

However, even when the computer is supposed to reboot into UEFI, it always sends me back to the normal login screen. By now, I ran out of ideas what to try.

Did anyone experience similar problems?

Edit: Got it working with different keyboard/display combination. The reboot from within Windows thing still didn’t work, but starting from powered off and hitting f10 a few times did it this time. I think the main problem was with my displayport to HDMI converter at home, which apparently caused some delays - and maybe the fact that it’s connected to a TV at home, not a regular display. Also, if you don’t stop hitting f10 at some point, apparently you get sent back to normal booting. I didn’t investigate that problem further though.

  • @[email protected]English
    10•10 months ago

    This isn’t a Windows thing, it’s a firmware thing. It’s HP’s doing, and HP is well known for screwing with the usability of their devices. In my case, on my Victus, it’s F10 that opens UEFI, but the menus are incredibly stripped down. Looking online, F10 seems to be the key to access it on your device, too. Maybe you just aren’t getting the timing right, sometimes you gotta mash the absolute hell out of that button to get it to register. Once you do get it, setting a post delay will make it easier in the future.

    • udonOPEnglish
      1•10 months ago

      Thanks, as I said, I tried all the f-buttons already, multiple times, with no success. F10 seems to be the one, but it didn’t work on multiple tries. I’m heading to the office later today where I have different keyboards and displays to try it with.

      Another thing I just found on a reddit post was that the USB stick should be no larger than 4GB. Even if that didn’t cause this problem, I’ll get a small USB stick on the way as well, just in case.