Latitude CPi Bios

johnbjuice · Post by **johnbjuice** » Wed Feb 27, 2008 4:33 pm

I have an old Latitude CPi laptop, crappy specs, etc. It has BIOS rev. A04. And I cannot get in. There is no clearly indicated key to push to access the BIOS, and I've tried every combination I can think of to try and get access. Delete, F2, Ctrl-Alt-Enter, Ctrl-Alt-Del, Ctrl-Alt-Backspace, etc. The F1 key says "setup" on it in purple (FN function), but pushing it and FN together does nothing.

I want to install ubuntu or some other linux-based operating system on the machine, but in order to boot from the CD, I need to access the BIOS. And I can't.

Any ideas?

Post by **bicostp** » Wed Feb 27, 2008 6:42 pm

Apparently F2 or Fn+F1 should get you into SETUP if you press them while the memory is being tested. Try holding F2 down, then pressing the power button.

I wouldn't run mainstream Ubuntu on it, it's kind of low-spec. (Especially if it only has 64 MB of RAM; you'll wait forever to get anything loaded.) Look around for a distro that uses IceWM, XFCE, or Fluxbox instead.

Or, you know, run something useful on that amount of RAM like Windows 2000 or 98. (Feel free to try Linux if you have at least 128 in it. Anything less and it will page to the hard drive like mad.)

johnbjuice · Post by **johnbjuice** » Wed Feb 27, 2008 9:22 pm

Well, the thing won't boot at all now. (And I still can't access the BIOS)

I'm going to wipe the hard drive and just put Windows 98 on it.

Oh well.

Bibin · Post by **Bibin** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 12:44 pm

Windows 2000 should have at least 256MB. I used it on a c600 with 128MB of ram and it was horrible.

DukeNukenFourEver · Post by **DukeNukenFourEver** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 2:08 pm

Could be the hard drive. Grab Damn Small Linux and see what's what. It doesn't need to install, you only need to run it as a "live" session or whatever. It's great for bypassing networks (until they catch on, like with me D: )