Help! Boot Dilemma

I have a killer problem during boot.

The BIOS display on my DELL deskktop will not respond to any keyboard
function key. I noticed this morning that the BIOS showed 'keyboard
failure', but after XP SP2 came up with its desktop, the keyboard
worked just fine.
God only knows how long this has been going on, and I just didn't
notice it. tried it a few times just to be sure. That would not be
a problem, except I mucked things up further by replacing the MOBO
battery, thinking that might help by resetting the BIOS. It didn't.
Now the BIOS hangs up requiring me to press F1 or F2 to continue,
which of course I can't because the keyboard is not recognized.
I have tried two other keyboards to no avail. The keyboards all work
in a second machine. They are all USB. Machine has no PS/2.

Am I dead in the water? Is there anything I can do?

Thanks

Jas

On Wed, 23 Jan 2013 09:12:30 -0500, Jas wrote:

I have a killer problem during boot.

The BIOS display on my DELL deskktop will not respond to any keyboard
function key. I noticed this morning that the BIOS showed 'keyboard
failure', but after XP SP2 came up with its desktop, the keyboard
worked just fine.
God only knows how long this has been going on, and I just didn't
notice it. tried it a few times just to be sure. That would not be
a problem, except I mucked things up further by replacing the MOBO
battery, thinking that might help by resetting the BIOS. It didn't.
Now the BIOS hangs up requiring me to press F1 or F2 to continue,
which of course I can't because the keyboard is not recognized.
I have tried two other keyboards to no avail. The keyboards all work
in a second machine. They are all USB. Machine has no PS/2.

Am I dead in the water? Is there anything I can do?

Thanks

Jas

"Jas" wrote:

I have a killer problem during boot.

The BIOS display on my DELL deskktop will not respond to any keyboard
function key. I noticed this morning that the BIOS showed 'keyboard
failure', but after XP SP2 came up with its desktop, the keyboard
worked just fine.
God only knows how long this has been going on, and I just didn't
notice it. tried it a few times just to be sure. That would not be
a problem, except I mucked things up further by replacing the MOBO
battery, thinking that might help by resetting the BIOS. It didn't.
Now the BIOS hangs up requiring me to press F1 or F2 to continue,
which of course I can't because the keyboard is not recognized.
I have tried two other keyboards to no avail. The keyboards all work
in a second machine. They are all USB. Machine has no PS/2.

Am I dead in the water? Is there anything I can do?

Your BIOS is too old to handle "USB legacy devices". That would be a
keyboard and mouse connected via USB. It can only handle those devices
on PS/2 ports. Or your BIOS does handle them but is currently
configured not to. Look for a setting in the BIOS to enable handling of
USB legacy devices (keyboard, mouse).

When an OS loads, it isn't going to bother accessing that hardware
through the BIOS. It has its own drivers to provide an interface
between the OS and hardware.

If you take too long replacing the CMOS battery, the BIOS can get reset.
The copy of BIOS settings in the CMOS table gets lost and has to be
copied from the EEPROM for the BIOS. That results in going back to
factory-time defaults. If your BIOS has support for USB legacy devices,
perhaps the default setting is Disabled. You have to go into the BIOS
to set it to Enabled.

Of course, you can't do much in the BIOS config screens without the use
of a keyboard. You'll have to move the keyboard back to the PS/2 port
so the BIOS can find it. When the OS loads, it will also find the
keyboard on the PS/2 port. There's no point in throwing away usable
ports. If you have a PS/2 port for the keyboard then use it.

You cannot simply connect a USB keyboard to a PS/2 port. Even if you
find a passive USB-to-PS/2 adapter, it won't work with a USB keyboard
UNLESS that keyboard's internal logic was designed to work with USB and
PS/2. Most USB keyboards are USB-only keyboards. They won't work on a
PS/2 port. The keyboard must have internal logic to switch between the
different hardware protocols. You can find *active* USB-to-PS/2
converters but they're pricey. The passive adapters don't convert
between the hardware protocols. So you'll need to use a PS/2 keyboard
to get back into the BIOS. If the keyboard specs says USB/PS2 then you
can use it on a USB port or with a passive adapter on a PS/2 port. If
the keyboard specs only say USB or USB-only then it will never work on a
PS/2 unless you buy a hardware protocol converter.

Of course, if you configure the BIOS to support USB legacy devices then
how are you going to get into that old mobo's BIOS that requires PS/2?
Just leave the keyboard hooked to a PS/2 port.