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More, following your good advice:

The Dead Trees version of the motherboard installation manual survived.

Sysrescue CD is burned.

Boot Menu key is F11.

I removed everything except the essentials -- MB, MEM, HDD, PSU DVD

Trying to reach BIOS continues to fail, machine boots directly into Debian command line

I have tried two different PS/2 keyboards (US Microsoft Natural and a Chicony Japanese)

I have tried three USB keyboards (US Microsoft Natural and two different IBM)

Per Curt's concern, none are more complex than keyboard + 10 key

Tried the USB keyboards in every connection slot on the back panel, with and without my surviving Green House four-port hub

When I cleared CMOS, I was asked to press F2 or Del to enter BIOS or F1 to load defaults. No keyboard input was possible.

The BIOS defaulted to standard defaults after the third reboot and I was back loading to the Debian command line.

One new issue -- if I reboot instead of shut down and restart, HDD (hence boot instruction) is not found.

Do I assume that I have a Norwegian Blue motherboard or is there more I can try?

Thanks for all of your input so far.

On Wed, Feb 28, 2018 at 11:34 AM, Curt Sampson <cjs@example.com> wrote:

CL, so sorry to hear about your fire.

On 2018-02-27 14:51 +0100 (Tue), Kalin KOZHUHAROV wrote:

> USB keyboard may not work in BIOS, esp. if connected via extra
> hardware (hub, controller), or sometimes even directly with certain
> USB settings inside BIOS (chicken/egg problem).

Right. It's also worth trying _with_ a USB hub between the keyboard
and host if it doesn't work when directly connected; even some modern
machines (such as one of my Raspberry PIs) have problems with some
keyboards that a hub will happily handle.

Further, if you're using a keyboard that has any extra input devices
on it (such as a built-in trackpad), try another keyboard that's just
a keyboard, with no other devices. Some BIOSes don't like multi-device
keyboards.

> Only after you have confirmed access to the hardware, use SysrescueCD,
> do a memtest, boot defaults, check that it works.

Yes, memtest is a great friend in situations like this since it's
simpler to boot than an OS and will run a system at full bore which
can help reveal stress- and heat-related problems if you let it go for
a few hours.

> Then put back all the hardware you disconnected in step 1 and try to
> boot again till X. If all works, you know it is _only_ a software
> problem :-D

For a long time my disaster recovery strategy has been not to try to
restore a system from backups but simply to install a new fresh OS and
then bring back my preferences and the like using a system designed to
do this easily. (In my case, dot-home[1].) Data files get backed up in
Dropbox but the "restore" is simply to install Dropbox on the new
system.

[1]: https://github.com/dot-home

cjs
--
Curt J. Sampson <cjs@example.com> +81 90 7737 2974

To iterate is human, to recurse divine.
- L Peter Deutsch

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Re: [tlug] BIOS / Video Problems