cant even reach bios on compaq

**Pork132** · June 6th, 2003, 03:02 PM

ive been playing around on a compaq presario 5050 testing stuff out and im trying to overclock the processor but i cant even reach the BIOS screen it only shows startup options. any advice would be appreciated!

**Brainchild** · June 6th, 2003, 03:13 PM

try F10,F1,F2,Delete.Those are the common access keys.

Welcome to TechIMO

**osprey4** · June 6th, 2003, 03:37 PM

Oops, got a little happy with that mouse button there.

**osprey4** · June 6th, 2003, 03:43 PM

The BIOS on a Compaq is in a special partition on the hard drive, one of the things that makes Compaqs so much fun to work on. I'm pretty sure it's F10 (since people call it the F10 partition). If you go to the HP site and find your model, they have downloads to prepare boot floppies to access the same functions.

Whether you can overclock a Compaq I have no idea.

**zidane182** · June 6th, 2003, 03:45 PM

i seriously doubt you can overclock a compaq through bios =P

**HfdWolfPack** · June 6th, 2003, 04:10 PM

Originally posted by osprey4
The BIOS on a Compaq is in a special partition on the hard drive, one of the things that makes Compaqs so much fun to work on. I'm pretty sure it's F10 (since people call it the F10 partition). If you go to the HP site and find your model, they have downloads to prepare boot floppies to access the same functions.

Whether you can overclock a Compaq I have no idea.

Found that out the hard way back in the day after formatting a drive

**skuz** · June 7th, 2003, 11:15 AM

I hate Compaqs for that. It's so risky, why did they even go furter than think about this HD BIOS ?

What happens if your HD dies ? The whole computer is ruined ?

AlexanderAkulick · June 7th, 2003, 03:43 PM

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**zen** · June 11th, 2003, 02:36 PM

Alexander is correct.

Bios on the hd??? roflmao

**DanU** · June 11th, 2003, 03:44 PM

Perhaps you should do a little more research before laughing.

It is true that Compaq used to put part of the BIOS on the hard disk. However, all the Compaq's I've seen in the last 4 years don't have this annoying feature.

**zen** · June 12th, 2003, 08:04 AM

Got any proof to back that up?
Why don't you read the explanation of what exactly resides on that small partition. Certainly not part of the bios.

mickwish · June 12th, 2003, 08:16 AM

You can get what are called ROMPAQ's, which are the BIOSes which these compaqs need to have loaded on a HDD, from compaq's webiste. Some of them work (sort of) with out the BIOS on a HDD partition, but you can't change anything hardware wise

Got one sitting nest to me right now - it's a 6233 I think, running win2k. No BIOS partition, but if I wanna add anything gotta load setup via floppy.

Compaqs are weird - the older the weirder. I got a heap of 'em: 486's, P233MMX, and some deskpro's whose numbers I can't recall.

Cheers
Mick

**sixf00t4** · June 12th, 2003, 09:00 AM

i thought they were called softpaqs?

<insert everything else mick said here>

mickwish · June 12th, 2003, 06:55 PM

Actually, I think the ones for updating syetem ROM (ie BIOS) are called ROMPAQ's. All compaq self-installables come in packaged in SOFTPAQ's, inclduing ROMPAQ's.

Confused as I am?

Cheers
Mick

**Jüš† ä gü¥** · June 12th, 2003, 07:08 PM

Originally posted by DanU
Perhaps you should do a little more research before laughing.

It is true that Compaq used to put part of the BIOS on the hard disk. However, all the Compaq's I've seen in the last 4 years don't have this annoying feature.

Uhm........not sure the exact model, but a certain Compaq notebook computer sold within the last 4 years actually DOES have that annoying feature, so

**DanU** · June 13th, 2003, 06:36 PM

Originally posted by zen
Got any proof to back that up?
Why don't you read the explanation of what exactly resides on that small partition. Certainly not part of the bios.

That depends on what you mean by "BIOS". If you mean Basic Input Output System then you're probably right. But look at the original post and you'll see that Pork132 was referring to the setup program as the "BIOS". On some Compaqs this resides on the hard drive rather than in firmware. Now who hasn't ever called the setup program the "CMOS" or the "BIOS"??? Give the guy a break instead of laughing at him.