Boot Problem – Dell 4550 – Windows 7 - ?? BIOS ??

I have a problem booting my computer.  It may be a relic but still serves as a great backup machine.  I believe something has gone wrong in the BIOS but that is only a best-guess.  I don’t know if it is a side-effect of a recent attempt to upgrade the video card to better support Windows 7.  If you do look there, the last post in that thread is the place to start since it is short, and mentions a strange BIOS behavior.  You can see that some weird things happened to the BIOS during all that.  But the computer was booting properly in spite of it when I was done with that exercise.  For that see:

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3515/t/19642513

I haven’t used the computer for several weeks (it was unplugged) and a new problem has popped up.  To answer two obvious questions, the internal battery appears to be fine.  Time/Date was right-on when I tried to put it back in service.  I have also run the Startup Repair option on the Windows 7 distribution disk.  It does not make any difference.  But what is happening seems to between POST and Boot, so I suspect a BIOS problem.

When booting normally, the blinking-dash appears in the upper left of the corner after the Dell logo goes away.  It eventually (15 seconds) reports “strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utility”.  F1 gains me nothing, it just repeats the process.

Now it gets stranger, and someone who understands the entire boot process may be able to tell me what is wrong immediately.  If I enter setup and make no changes, just escape from setup, the whole blinking/message thing repeats.  If I enter setup and make a token change, like shifting the boot sequence, then exit saving the changes, the blinking/message thing repeats.  But sometimes (not predictably) if I enter setup and make a token change then choose “discard changes and exit” Windows 7 comes up normally.

All this tells me the hard drive image, including the boot sector is probably intact.  In fact, I even reloaded the full image from the last known working version and the behavior doesn’t change.  I strongly suspect the execution of the BIOS code, with perhaps some timing thing involved because it is not precisely repeatable.  But if I persist, over several tries I can eventually get Windows up and running. And it runs properly.

I have Dell’s suggestions for resetting the BIOS from here:

http://www.dell.com/support/Article/us/en/19/SLN284985/EN

I have done the simple CMOS reset by removing the battery.  I don’t see any change.  I have also reloaded the v A08 BIOS from a floppy.  No change in the behavior.

I don’t find a jumper labeled as indicated.  I do have a jumper labeled J8H1 CONFIG, but the manual only refers to it for clearing passwords.

I would be willing to try the suggestions here:

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3514/t/18521587

There are specific instructions for the 4550 but I am not sure what they are.  I am guessing  that the Mail is an M and the Beer a B, but since it might do nasty things if I am wrong, I am afraid to try them.  Perhaps someone can not only tell me the three magic Alt-combos, but maybe an administrator could edit that thread to make them readable.

Of course, I could defeat the whole thing by hibernating the computer after each use, but I shouldn’t have to.  Any help will be greatly appreciated.

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3514/t/18521587