Windows 8 Keyboard not detected on dell xps 8700

[surveyor1951]

A friend brought over his pc & he pulled his cmos battery out. Then he asked me to look at it. I only have usb keyboards . I tried different keyboards but when I fired it up the screen displayed " keyboard not detected press f1 to continue & f2 for setup utilty." I like challenges & I have rebuilt computers but this is another challenge. There is no port on this pc for the older keyboards (ps2 keyboards I think their called). My friend had run a wireless keyboard before he pulled the battery. Now I need suggestions on how I should get his pc up & running. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks

 

[livix07]

You have to enter the BIOS setup (press F2) and enable USB ports.
Take a look at the PDF page attached that I have extracted from Dell xps 8700 manual.
Have you tried to connect the keyboard to all the USB ports?
I don't think the default settings of the BIOS disable all USB ports if there is no PS2 port.

 

[surveyor1951]

I tried every usb port with 2 different usb keyboards to no avail. I ordered a usb to ps2 adaptor to try with my ps2 keyboard & see if I can get into the bios that way. The adaptor won't be arriving till late next week so will do an update next week. Thank for the help.

 

[livix07]

I ordered a usb to ps2 adaptor to try with my ps2 keyboard & see if I can get into the bios that way. The adaptor won't be arriving till late next week so will do an update next week. Thank for the help.

I am confused. You said in your first post there was no PS2 port. If there is a PS2 port than it will work unless it is broken. If there is no PS2 port then no adapter can help you because you will still have to connect it to a USB port.
Is your computer identical to this one?

 

[livix07]

You rather need a PS2 PCI card. Just make sure it is compatible with one of the motherboard PCI slots.

 

[surveyor1951]

Yes my pc looks like the back of this one. There is no pc2 slot but the the ps2 adaptor has a male usb connector & a female ends to support the ps2 mouse & keyboard, so I thought this might work. Hoping that the usb port might recognize the ps2 keyboard through this adaptor. A hail Mary maybe.

 

[surveyor1951]

What I did in the meantime, i unhooked my Seagate external hd from my pc & hooked it up to this machine. When I turned it on it went straight to the Dell logo. So I think it was trying to boot from the external hd. So I think the hd on the pc is corrupt so it won't boot up. Is this what you guys think the problem is. Thanks for the help.

 

[livix07]

What I did in the meantime, i unhooked my Seagate external hd from my pc & hooked it up to this machine. When I turned it on it went straight to the Dell logo. So I think it was trying to boot from the external hd. So I think the hd on the pc is corrupt so it won't boot up. Is this what you guys think the problem is. Thanks for the help.

Do the USB ports work when the external HDD is connected to that Dell computer?

Normally, the USB ports are not influenced by a storage device. Basically USB ports should work even if there is no a storage device (HDD or SDD). For example you can run a Linux live-USB drive even if the computer doesn't have any storage device.
Anyway, your situation is strange. It's hard for me to believe that all USB ports are disabled when the BIOS settings are set to default. You wrote in your first post that your friend only removed the CMOS battery. That means the BIOS was reset (set to default settings). How could the guys from Dell make such a stupid mistake by not allowing at least one USB port enabled by default so that people can access the BIOS setup?
My assumption is that something else has happened, maybe another component that is related to the USB controller is broken. There are tens or hundreds of resistors and capacitors on a motherboard. That's why I recommend to you to buy PS2 PCI card (see my previous message) that is compatible with one of your motherboard PCI slots and use a PS2 keyboard.

 

[surveyor1951]

I tried my keyboards on my laptop & my working pc & they don't detect the usb keyboards so I suspect the keyboards are suspect. I'll go to town today & pickup a new keyboard & give that a try. Thanks for the reply.

 

[surveyor1951]

Forgot to mention on this mb the empty pci card slots are express ports & I can not see any ps/2 pci cards for these express ports.

 

[surveyor1951]

went to staples & got a new keyboard. I am now able to get into the bios now. What should I change in the bios? What should the boot order be in the bios. I also downloaded Belarc & copied all the info off this pc plus I have the Windows 10 product key.

 

[livix07]

What should I change in the bios? What should the boot order be in the bios.

Take a look at the PDF file in attachment. I have extracted it from the official manual for Dell xps 8700 that you can find Link Removed.

 

[surveyor1951]

Since I got into the bios, now I can go into windows 10 & do all my stuff in there. Is it normal to boot from the msata port with the ssd card, because that is what this pc does. It will run without the hdd, it is uninstalled because it has failed & I ordered a new one. When it arrives do i need to install windows 10 or is it just for storage now. Should I plug sata0 into the hdd or sata1. Any suggestions for this. Thank you, much apprieciated.

 

[livix07]

Have you bought a SSD (Solid State Drive) and want to use it as the main disk?

If YES, then you should connect the SSD to the SATA0 port and install Windows on it. Change the boot order in BIOS after installing Windows so that the SSD will boot first.

 

[surveyor1951]

The drive should be here late in the week as I ordered it through amazon. The failed one was hooked up to sata0 so I assume this hd was to boot up windows 10. Would windows 10 be installed in ssd card in the msata slot or what is the purpose of that. Thanks for your help.

 

[livix07]

SSD stands for Solid State Drive. It is not a card but a disk/drive.
I don't know what that "msata slot" is.

 

[surveyor1951]

The Seagate hdd as you can see is not detected (It does not spin -it is failed). Windows 10 boots from the ssd disc drive. I believe the msata slot proper name isMSATA1 is where the ssd card fits into (#11 in the mb diagram in the owners manual). the ssd card is the LITEONIT LMT256M mSATA 256gb. So my question would be should I keep the ssd disc drive as my primary booting device or should I use the new hard drive as my booting device with windows 10 installed on it. If I use the new hard drive would that mean I have to save all my files or would the ssd card still maintain all the files & pictures etc. Thanks for all you help.

 

[livix07]

It is very good that you posted the 2 images. I didn't know about "mSATA" standard and I have never used it.

So my question would be should I keep the ssd disc drive as my primary booting device or should I use the new hard drive as my booting device with windows 10 installed on it. If I use the new hard drive would that mean I have to save all my files or would the ssd card still maintain all the files & pictures etc. Thanks for all you help.

It all depends on what you want to do. You can clone the SSD to the new HDD and have your files on both of them, keep the SSD as a backup media and use the HDD as the main disk. You can also set up a RAID1 and have all the files on both of the disks as well but in this case I think you will need a mSATA to SATA adapter so that both the SSD and the HDD are connected to SATA ports (12,13,14,17,21 in the motherboard diagram in the owner's manual). However, regardless of whether you will clone or use RAID1, I suggest that you reformat the SSD and even reinstall the Windows because there are 3 recovery partitions on it and that is not normal. Make sure you save your files to another media (DVD, USB flash drive, external disk etc.) before reinstalling Windows or before setting up RAID1.

 

[surveyor1951]

Yes, cloning was one of my options
The other option I was thinking was to keep the ssd drive as my os & my programs & use the hd as storage for my files by going into windows 10 settings/system/storage & move my files to the hd. Is there any disadvantage to this option.
Thanks for your help & much appreciated.

 

[livix07]

Yes, cloning was one of my options
The other option I was thinking was to keep the ssd drive as my os & my programs & use the hd as storage for my files by going into windows 10 settings/system/storage & move my files to the hd. Is there any disadvantage to this option.
Thanks for your help & much appreciated.

If you clone, then Windows will also be copied to the drive, therefore if the SSD dies you don't have to install Windows on the HDD because it is already copied. If you just save some files without cloning the disk and the SSD dies you will have to install Windows on the HDD since it hasn't already been installed. Anyway you will need another media for backup when one of the disks dies. Imagine what will happen if you only have one disk and it dies. That's why all the servers have RAID or are connected to a SAN (Storage Area Network). It is called Redundancy and the purpose of it is to avoid Single Points of Failure.
I have forgotten to tell you that you can also buy a NAS (Network Attached Storage) for backup.