[SOLVED] Acer Aspire 5738 won't boot past initial BIOS messages

[pointtopoint]

I have an Acer Aspire 5738 that hangs while booting.

The BIOS is Phoenix SecureCore(tm) NB V1.03

It finds the CPU, the system RAM passes and the system and video BIOS are shadowed.

Then it hangs and will go no further.

I can enter setup by hitting F2 if I'm quick. If I wait too long, once it hangs it won't enter setup.

Occasionally while entering setup, it shows BIOS messages for the CD-ROM and mouse.

I've tried resetting the BIOS to defaults and booting from a USB pen drive. Neither works.

What could be the cause of this problem and what can I do to fix it? Thanks.

EDIT: Pressing F10 a few times is enough to get the machine to boot, but I still don't know why or what's causing that. It's a working laptop, but I'd like to understand why it hangs unless I press F10.

 

[Grobe]

So you get past the "enter bios menu" / "boot options" before it hangs?
Are F10 the key to enter boot menu on your computer?

If yes on both, that seems like it tries to boot from another device. I don't know the speccs for that particular laptop, so with a bit of guessing maybe it tries to boot from DVD, external hdd or thumb drive. Try to remove any removable media and see if that solve the issue.