How do I get into my BIOS with a Corsair keyboard?

Got a shopping cart of parts that you want opinions on? Get advice from members on your planned or existing system (or upgrade).

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

Post Reply
SGCSG1
Posts: 26
Joined: Fri Dec 05, 2008 8:25 am
Location: Phoenix

How do I get into my BIOS with a Corsair keyboard?

Post by SGCSG1 » Mon Aug 08, 2016 10:29 am

I recently replaced my 'getting pretty old' keyboard with a Corsair.

I'm really happy with it - works great, feels great, looks great.

But it doesn't 'turn on' until Windows starts up.

Is this a common thing with USB keyboards these days?

How can you get into your BIOS if by the time the keyboard is active you're already at the Windows start up screen?

SGCSG1
Posts: 26
Joined: Fri Dec 05, 2008 8:25 am
Location: Phoenix

Re: How do I get into my BIOS with a Corsair keyboard?

Post by SGCSG1 » Mon Aug 08, 2016 1:03 pm

An update - weird stuff happening:

I just took my case out on the porch to clean it with some compress air. Jeez, it was a mess. Should have done this months ago.

When I tried to boot it hung at the startup (bios, not windows) screen.

I thought it wasn't finding the hard drive so I messed with that awhile.

I wanted to see if I could go into the bios and see if there was a hard drive so I swapped in another keyboard and voila, windows booted.

I put back the Corsair keyboard and it all worked (although I still can't do anything with the keyboard before I hit Windows.

Weird. Why should keyboards be so mysterious in 2016? You'd have thought that would be pretty freaking settled technology by now.

Still can't hit F2 to go into BIOS.

Fire-Flare
Posts: 422
Joined: Sun Jun 13, 2010 12:44 pm
Location: Seattle

Re: How do I get into my BIOS with a Corsair keyboard?

Post by Fire-Flare » Mon Aug 08, 2016 1:36 pm

Does your Corsair keyboard have those special-function F keys? You may need to hold the Fn key and F2 to enter your BIOS.

CA_Steve
Moderator
Posts: 7650
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 4:36 am
Location: St. Louis, MO

Re: How do I get into my BIOS with a Corsair keyboard?

Post by CA_Steve » Mon Aug 08, 2016 2:06 pm

I hit the Delete key to get into BIOS setup during boot. Works fine with my Corsair USB keyboard.

SGCSG1
Posts: 26
Joined: Fri Dec 05, 2008 8:25 am
Location: Phoenix

Re: How do I get into my BIOS with a Corsair keyboard?

Post by SGCSG1 » Mon Aug 08, 2016 7:14 pm

CA_Steve wrote:I hit the Delete key to get into BIOS setup during boot. Works fine with my Corsair USB keyboard.
I'm happy for you. But as I said, my keyboard does not 'WAKE UP' until Windows start to load. So I've blown past the BIOS setup option before I can use my keyboard.

Is this a Corsair problem? An ASRock problem? Bad Juju?

CA_Steve
Moderator
Posts: 7650
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 4:36 am
Location: St. Louis, MO

Re: How do I get into my BIOS with a Corsair keyboard?

Post by CA_Steve » Mon Aug 08, 2016 7:39 pm

Well, if you weren't so quick to snark, you would have noticed that I used a Corsair USB keyboard and a different key to get into BIOS, telling you that:
a) it isn't a Corsair USB keyboard problem
b) if the F2 key isn't active during boot, perhaps the delete key is.

SGCSG1
Posts: 26
Joined: Fri Dec 05, 2008 8:25 am
Location: Phoenix

Re: How do I get into my BIOS with a Corsair keyboard?

Post by SGCSG1 » Mon Aug 08, 2016 9:09 pm

CA_Steve wrote:Well, if you weren't so quick to snark, you would have noticed that I used a Corsair USB keyboard and a different key to get into BIOS, telling you that:
a) it isn't a Corsair USB keyboard problem
b) if the F2 key isn't active during boot, perhaps the delete key is.
WHEN THE KEYBOARD IS NOT 'ACTIVE' NONE OF THE KEYS WORK.

Vicotnik
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 1831
Joined: Thu Feb 13, 2003 6:53 am
Location: Sweden

Re: How do I get into my BIOS with a Corsair keyboard?

Post by Vicotnik » Mon Aug 08, 2016 11:28 pm

Now the caps key is stuck as well. Corsair should stick to making memory sticks? ;)

Have you gone through all the USB settings in the BIOS? There's usually a bunch of them, legacy this and that etc. You probably also have tried all possible ports? Sometimes USB3 can be non-native and such, only waking up when the OS loads. On other boards it seems that the those USB3-ports are recommended for mouse/keyboard. I dunno.

nagi
Posts: 125
Joined: Tue Aug 31, 2010 6:48 pm
Location: Outside the box

Re: How do I get into my BIOS with a Corsair keyboard?

Post by nagi » Tue Aug 09, 2016 12:41 am

SGCSG1 wrote:But it doesn't 'turn on' until Windows starts up.

Is this a common thing with USB keyboards these days?

How can you get into your BIOS if by the time the keyboard is active you're already at the Windows start up screen?
That's the first I heard of a wired, supposedly standard USB keyboard doing that. The only time I had similar problems was with bluetooth keyboards without their original dongle (as the bios can't/won't prompt bt pairing). Mind, I do have a $10 USB for getting into the BIOS of the PC that uses said bluetooth keyboard.

I had numerous wired and wireless ones over the ages, cheap and luxury, and what you described only happened to wireless stuff in non-standard configuration. Most work "driver-less" and even "OS-less", the Bt with its original dongle one had a wake-up/auto re-pair time that was longer than it took for the BIOS to progress past the F2/del prompt.

It is either defective, or there is either something very fishy going on with it and Corsair chose to forego some pretty important bits in the firmware. (Basically, if that's a design issue, then they cut costs perhaps by not actually presenting the keyboard as an HID device? I'm not a HW engineer though.)


And yes, the caps is stuck. You might want to return it and get keyboards from Logitech, CM, Razer, Roccat, MS, DAS.... there are many-many options out there from companies that don't screw up like that.

SGCSG1
Posts: 26
Joined: Fri Dec 05, 2008 8:25 am
Location: Phoenix

Re: How do I get into my BIOS with a Corsair keyboard?

Post by SGCSG1 » Tue Aug 09, 2016 8:19 am

nagi wrote:
SGCSG1 wrote:But it doesn't 'turn on' until Windows starts up.

Is this a common thing with USB keyboards these days?

How can you get into your BIOS if by the time the keyboard is active you're already at the Windows start up screen?
That's the first I heard of a wired, supposedly standard USB keyboard doing that. The only time I had similar problems was with bluetooth keyboards without their original dongle (as the bios can't/won't prompt bt pairing). Mind, I do have a $10 USB for getting into the BIOS of the PC that uses said bluetooth keyboard.

I had numerous wired and wireless ones over the ages, cheap and luxury, and what you described only happened to wireless stuff in non-standard configuration. Most work "driver-less" and even "OS-less", the Bt with its original dongle one had a wake-up/auto re-pair time that was longer than it took for the BIOS to progress past the F2/del prompt.

It is either defective, or there is either something very fishy going on with it and Corsair chose to forego some pretty important bits in the firmware. (Basically, if that's a design issue, then they cut costs perhaps by not actually presenting the keyboard as an HID device? I'm not a HW engineer though.)


And yes, the caps is stuck. You might want to return it and get keyboards from Logitech, CM, Razer, Roccat, MS, DAS.... there are many-many options out there from companies that don't screw up like that.
Another odd thing... keyboard has two plugs. They say use one into a usb 3.0 port, if you use 2.0, use both.

When I put both in a usb 2.0 port... my PC will not boot.

As for checking the bios.... I CAN'T GET INTO IT. And there's that stuck caps lock again.

CA_Steve
Moderator
Posts: 7650
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 4:36 am
Location: St. Louis, MO

Re: How do I get into my BIOS with a Corsair keyboard?

Post by CA_Steve » Tue Aug 09, 2016 8:52 am

Try Corsair forums. It could be a polling rate issue.

SGCSG1
Posts: 26
Joined: Fri Dec 05, 2008 8:25 am
Location: Phoenix

Re: How do I get into my BIOS with a Corsair keyboard?

Post by SGCSG1 » Tue Aug 09, 2016 8:58 am

I just got off the phone with Corsair tech support.

He said this is a 'known issue' with some motherboards. We tried changing the polling rate - it made no difference. I'm using an ASRock P67 LGA 1155. It's four years old.

He said it is just (wait for it) NOT GOING TO WORK.

Great. So I'm buying a cheap PS2 keyboard just to get into my bios.

Jeez, I can't believe it's 2016 and we still have things like this happening. An expensive gaming motherboard and an expensive gaming keyboard and they don't work together.

I hope Skylake doesn't have these problems.

Post Reply