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Tom’s Guide
Tom’s Guide
Technology
Peter Wolinski

How to enter the BIOS menu on a Windows PC

Dell XPS 8960 review unit on desk.

You’ll definitely want to know how to enter the BIOS menu on your Windows PC if you’d like to learn more about how your hardware is performing, or if you need to troubleshoot issues.

So what is the BIOS menu? BIOS stands for Basic Input/Output System and is the firmware your computer uses when you first power it on. BIOS allows your computer's motherboard to detect the various bits of hardware that make up your computer, and to select a boot drive (ideally with your OS installed on it) to boot to.

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