HP BIOS on boot now says "Press the ESC key for Startup Menu" ??

[lagagnon]

A new EliteBook 840 G2. I just entered the BIOS setup in order to add a BIOS password for security, save the password and exited.

Before doing the above when I cold booted my laptop all I would see is the "HP" blue logo and the system wold almost immediately boot into Windows 10. Since I added the password I now get this message in the bottom left of the initial BIOS screen with the HP logo: " "Press the ESC key for Startup Menu ". And the BIOS seems to take 8-10 seconds longer before it actually boots into Windows.

I can only suspect that I inadvertently changed some other BIOS setting. 

Does anyone know how to get rid of this extra boot time and that message?

Thanks in advance for any assistance you can offer.

[WAWood · Accepted solution]

@lagagnon 

It's YOUR PC so it's YOUR choice -- but personally, I feel a BIOS password is a really bad idea.

HP used to send SMC.bin files to folks who forgot their BIOS passwords, so it was a simple fix to get access back. But, they no longer do that and now, charge for a complete replacement of the system board -- which can run into hundreds of dollars worth of fees.  So, the fix is no longer cheap or easy.

If it were mine, I would go in and remove the BIOS password, especially if that gets the performance back to what it was previously.

[lagagnon]

Thanks - yes, figured that out- The longer boot occurred after I enabled a BIOS password. Got rid of it and now do not have the "Press the ESC key..." message and a much faster boot to the OS. 

Thinking about it now you might be right about a BIOS password being a bad idea. My thoughts in the past were that if someone got hold of my laptop they could wipe my OS, but really, if the thing was stolen that's probably what I would want to happen anyway! 

Also thanks for the heads up about no SMC.bin files now!