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Note that this question is quite different from mine, as I clearly see the F2 - Setup in the right corner.

As I really have no idea at all, how to solve this problem, I describe everything in great detail.

I recently bought a secondhand Laptop, a Dell XPS-9333 from ebay with Windows 10 preinstalled working well. I could also visit the BIOS with pressing F2. However, there I noticed that the BIOS version was old (I think it was A4 or so, while A8 was the newest).
Therefore, I booted windows up again and installed the BIOS update. As far as I can remember, did Windows boot correctly after the BIOS update.
Then I decided to install OpenBSD 6.2, started partitioning and such things. However, I noticed that installing openBSD without an ethernet connection is a bit clumsy because:

  • openBSD did boot correctly from the usb stick.
  • I could enter the BIOS to change the boot order.

Therefore I decided to install nixOS on this laptop an install openBSD on a different machine.
However, I could not enter the BIOS anymore. After pressing the powerup key, I start pressing F2 repeatedly like before. Dell Startup Logo

  • The Dell Logo starts. (similar to the one above)
  • The keyboard background lighting starts.
  • However, the display remains black after the Dell Logo has disappeared.
    • I cannot enter the BIOS setup menu
    • My nixOS USB stick is not used as a start medium.

Now I'm completely lost.
What can I do to fix/debug that?

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  • 2
    You should dissassembly the laptop and perform a manual BIOS reset. Had you resetted the bios to default values after bios update?
    – uDev
    Mar 1, 2018 at 11:15
  • @uDev nope, i hadn't resettet the bios to default values. I'll investigate to perform a manual BIOS reset.
    – toogley
    Mar 1, 2018 at 14:17
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    Sometimes you need to flash same bios 2 times (microcode issue), also sometimes you cannot skip versions on update (meaning to flash v09 from v04, you need to flash v05 then v08 before). If you cannot skip version, or need to flash multiple times, its noted on manufactures page or in bios release notes. (I met both problem on Dell laptops too)
    – uDev
    Mar 1, 2018 at 15:02

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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The solution to this problem was basically to format the mSata SSD. It seems that my tinkering with OpenBSD has left the mSata SSD incorrectly formatted, which caused the BIOS to not enter the BIOS. Therfore, inserting the mSata into another laptop (a Thinkpad T520) and formatting the mSata SSD there has solved the problem.

It had nothing to do with the BIOS firmware upgrade, version 8 was successfully installed after I could enter the BIOS again.

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