F8 boot menu

This may seem pretty silly but I always used to repeatedly tap the F8
key for the boot menu on this Asus X58 Sabertooth board, but
accidentally I discovered after many years that I can just hold it down
and it does the same thing without missing that crucial couple second
window.

Is this now a common thing especially since we started using the faster
booting SSDs.

Or have I been sleeping too long? (the Rip Van Winkle effect). :-)

Rene

Rene Lamontagne wrote:
This may seem pretty silly but I always used to repeatedly tap the F8
key for the boot menu on this Asus X58 Sabertooth board, but
accidentally I discovered after many years that I can just hold it down
and it does the same thing without missing that crucial couple second
window.

Is this now a common thing especially since we started using the faster
booting SSDs.

Or have I been sleeping too long? (the Rip Van Winkle effect). :-)

Rene

Some motherboards will overflow the keyboard buffer if you do
that.

I wouldn't rely on that working on every machine.

The keyboard sends "key_down" and "key_up" codes. It might
be using some sort of "auto-repeat" behavior when the key
stays down for more than some time period. I don't know
exactly what the code sequence looks like in that case.
(What packets and when, on the USB wire.)

Even a USB keyboard could overflow, because there is
a crazy scheme in the BIOS to handle USB keyboards. They
stuff the next code, into the *PS/2 port* chip register,
to make it look like a PS/2 keyboard did it. There may
even be a BIOS setting, to choose whether the motherboard
goes to that much trouble when handling USB keyboard
input.

With things like UEFI BIOS, the handling of I/O might
be quite different, and smoother for all I know.

Paul

On 12/30/2017 4:33 PM, Paul wrote:
Rene Lamontagne wrote:
This may seem pretty silly but I always used to repeatedly tap the F8
key for the boot menu on this Asus X58 Sabertooth board, but
accidentally I discovered after many years that I can just hold it
down and it does the same thing without missing that crucial couple
second window.

Is this now a common thing especially since we started using the
faster booting SSDs.

Or have I been sleeping too long? (the Rip Van Winkle effect). :-)

Rene

Some motherboards will overflow the keyboard buffer if you do
that.

I wouldn't rely on that working on every machine.

The keyboard sends "key_down" and "key_up" codes. It might
be using some sort of "auto-repeat" behavior when the key
stays down for more than some time period. I don't know
exactly what the code sequence looks like in that case.
(What packets and when, on the USB wire.)

Even a USB keyboard could overflow, because there is
a crazy scheme in the BIOS to handle USB keyboards. They
stuff the next code, into the *PS/2 port* chip register,
to make it look like a PS/2 keyboard did it. There may
even be a BIOS setting, to choose whether the motherboard
goes to that much trouble when handling USB keyboard
input.

With things like UEFI BIOS, the handling of I/O might
be quite different, and smoother for all I know.

Â*Â* Paul

This is a Steel-series Apex keyboard with Nkey rollover and according to
specs will not ghost, Also it has adjustable polling rate from 125 to
1000 cps, is set at 1000.
So it may be the KB doing this as I don't see anything in the bios.
All I can say is a really good feature and hope its permanet.

Rene

On 12/30/2017 7:31 PM, Rene Lamontagne wrote:
On 12/30/2017 4:33 PM, Paul wrote:
Rene Lamontagne wrote:
This may seem pretty silly but I always used to repeatedly tap the F8
key for the boot menu on this Asus X58 Sabertooth board, but
accidentally I discovered after many years that I can just hold it
down and it does the same thing without missing that crucial couple
second window.

Is this now a common thing especially since we started using the
faster booting SSDs.

Or have I been sleeping too long? (the Rip Van Winkle effect). :-)

Rene

Some motherboards will overflow the keyboard buffer if you do
that.

I wouldn't rely on that working on every machine.

The keyboard sends "key_down" and "key_up" codes. It might
be using some sort of "auto-repeat" behavior when the key
stays down for more than some time period. I don't know
exactly what the code sequence looks like in that case.
(What packets and when, on the USB wire.)

Even a USB keyboard could overflow, because there is
a crazy scheme in the BIOS to handle USB keyboards. They
stuff the next code, into the *PS/2 port* chip register,
to make it look like a PS/2 keyboard did it. There may
even be a BIOS setting, to choose whether the motherboard
goes to that much trouble when handling USB keyboard
input.

With things like UEFI BIOS, the handling of I/O might
be quite different, and smoother for all I know.

Â*Â*Â* Paul

This is a Steel-series Apex keyboard with Nkey rollover and according to
specs will not ghost, Also it has adjustable polling rate from 125 to
1000 cps, is set at 1000.
So it may be the KB doing this as I don't see anything in the bios.
All I can say is a really good feature and hope its permanet.

Rene




Boy, some days I just don't think very fast. :-)
Why not try an other keyboard?
And so I plugged in another $15.00 keyboard and it works just fine,
Holding F8 down brings up the boot menu same as the other KB, So that
feature must be built in the Amercan Megatrend Bios, just happy I found
after so many years.

Rene

On 12/30/2017 5:56 PM, KenW wrote:
On Sat, 30 Dec 2017 16:25:13 -0600, Rene Lamontagne
wrote:

This may seem pretty silly but I always used to repeatedly tap the F8
key for the boot menu on this Asus X58 Sabertooth board, but
accidentally I discovered after many years that I can just hold it down
and it does the same thing without missing that crucial couple second
window.

Is this now a common thing especially since we started using the faster
booting SSDs.

Or have I been sleeping too long? (the Rip Van Winkle effect). :-)

Rene

I use msconfig to go to and leave safe mode. Sure thing ! And whatever
key the manufacture uses for boot menu.


KenW


Hi Ken, This MB is different, F8 puts you in the boot menu where you
choose which drive to boot from, I can choose a USB stick or Optical
drive or main OS drive.
F5 used to get me into Safe mode but since windows 10 that no longer
works.

Rene

KenW wrote:
On Sun, 31 Dec 2017 10:19:04 -0600, Rene Lamontagne
wrote:

On 12/30/2017 5:56 PM, KenW wrote:
On Sat, 30 Dec 2017 16:25:13 -0600, Rene Lamontagne
wrote:

This may seem pretty silly but I always used to repeatedly tap the F8
key for the boot menu on this Asus X58 Sabertooth board, but
accidentally I discovered after many years that I can just hold it down
and it does the same thing without missing that crucial couple second
window.

Is this now a common thing especially since we started using the faster
booting SSDs.

Or have I been sleeping too long? (the Rip Van Winkle effect). :-)

Rene
I use msconfig to go to and leave safe mode. Sure thing ! And whatever
key the manufacture uses for boot menu.


KenW

Hi Ken, This MB is different, F8 puts you in the boot menu where you
choose which drive to boot from, I can choose a USB stick or Optical
drive or main OS drive.
F5 used to get me into Safe mode but since windows 10 that no longer
works.

Rene


I have Asus mobo desktops and the VERY few times I need another boot
device, I have to do a search for the key ! Laptops, the same.
Ever since Win 10, I use msconfig for safe mode. Wonder when MS will
kill that program ?!


KenW

I altered the Win10 boot menu with bcdedit, so there
would never be a problem getting there.

You can do this in Windows 10.

https://winaero.com/blog/wp-content/...oot-Loader.png

https://winaero.com/blog/enable-the-...in-windows-10/

One thing to note. That option doesn't work all the time.
If you do that on a Win10/Win10 dual boot (two OSes on one
hard drive), it won't stop on that page and uses the
Metro-like blue interface instead. The method isn't guaranteed
to work. But it's worth a try if you think you'll
need to get in there some day (when the OS is broken).

You can also do "offline" BCD edits. You can boot an
installer DVD and use Command Prompt from the installer
DVD, to implement the single command line needed. But
then the syntax of the command needs to be changed a bit.
If you do it from the OS now, you can just follow the
recipe they give. The bcdedit command accepts both
online and offline syntax, and the offline flavor is
for when the OS is broken, and you're trying to
"prime it" from the installer DVD or recovery CD.

Paul

On Sat, 30 Dec 2017 16:25:13 -0600, Rene Lamontagne wrote:

This may seem pretty silly but I always used to repeatedly tap the F8
key for the boot menu on this Asus X58 Sabertooth board, but
accidentally I discovered after many years that I can just hold it down
and it does the same thing without missing that crucial couple second
window.

Is this now a common thing especially since we started using the faster
booting SSDs.

AFAIK that has been the case for a long time. Same thing when pressing
Del during start up. However, I've noticed that in some cases it doesn't
work if you press it too soon. Sometimes you have to wait until you see
the logo.

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s|b