Can't access Bios

Jonbouy


THIS  ^^^^^^^

You've shown that the BIOS has reset correctly, the only thing now is you have no control over entering it.

If it's a PS/2 connection try (when the machine is turned off!!!) plugging the keyboard in the PS/2 port for the mouse and trying to reboot again, sometimes the keyboard will work from there enabling you to at least set the bios up.  You should NEVER try 'hot-plugging' a PS/2 port when the machine is running!

Hopefully if that doesn't work a USB keyboard will, as that is the only alternative you have left.

"Mesh"
Just wanting to confirm before getting a USB keyboard.....

slartabartfast


Some Bios have a fast boot option that skips recognition of peripherals. If that has been set, you are locked out of the bios by the fact that the keyboard is not recognized. On some models the fix is to power off the machine, then press and hold the power button for a long time or until you get a beep code. If your screen says do you want fast boot on next boot you say NO. Why anyone would want to save a few seconds on boot with this thing beats me. Might be worth a try. If this works find and disable fast boot in your bios.

Mesh


Since I've reinstalled Vista 32bit (yes I know it's old, but I'm working with what I have :)), I noticed my RAM  is showing as 2.5GB (I have a total of 4GB installed). It used to show about 3.xx before this fiasco took place and I do realize Vista hogs a lot of resources.

I do use a lot of softsynths and do try to tweak the sys a little to squeeze as much out of it as I can.......would it be beneficial to use a program like 
Ultimate Windows Tweaker v1.2?

http://www.winvistaclub.com/ultimate_windows_tweaker.html

Or are there better options than this?

  
Ps.
Have you used any of those Vista tweaks or any others that you can recommend?

Mesh-
When you say "those Vista Tweaks" what are you referring to? Something like TWEEKVISTA by Stardock?
http://www.stardock.com/products/tweakvista/
 
I used to get crazy with all the tweaking and not for nothing I think the only way I would have noticed much of a difference was if I was a performance test machine. Now I only tweek the BIOS and turn off unnecessary things like the parallel port because I used a wireless or a USB printer, and may be make sure the Primary video card is set to the correct type slot...PCI-E or AGP (depends on your video card type) stuff like that.
As far as OS settings I would follow the Cakewalk recommendation’s. (like adjusting the Performance Options/Adjust For Best Performance) and Virtual Memory paging size. Cakewalk had an insert they used to include when you would buy their Sonar in retail box.
 
Thing is that since I have gone to Windows 7 I don’t seem to need to touch anything. So I hope someday you can upgrade because you will find that 90% of the things you think about/ mess with in Vista have gone away. It’s been tough trying to remember all the things I used to try and do to get better performance out of Vista 32bit and memory issues.
 
On any of my systems I use the following…Microsoft Security Essentials-Free/Malware Bytes-Antimalware/Secunia PSI/CCleaner and a good defragmenter…PerfectDisk. These items keep my PC clean as a whistle and do not interfere with DAW and latency. Also note that I never seem to have to re-install Windows at all since I went to Windows 7.
When you first install the OS everything runs awesome and as you start to add things you start to notice performance drops over time. Memory is used up and the PC gets cluttered. Therefore the need for certain software like a good defragmenter to help.
 
Here is a link you may want to read up on. I scanned through these and I used to do most of the tweaks but again I can’t honestly say I noticed great performance boost. Pick and choose wisely is all I can say.
 
If you have a question about a certain Tweak I have no prob trying to help.
 
[size=3 font="times new roman"][link=http://www.acousticguitarcommunity.com/group/cakewalksonarusers/forum/topics/pc-tweaks-for-better-daw?commentId=2161554%3AComment%3A290344&groupId=2161554%3AGroup%3A270763]http://www.acousticguitar...61554%3AGroup%3A270763[/link]