When you start up your Lenovo PC, a small operating system hard-coded into a memory chip in your system’s motherboard kicks off a power-on-self-test.
This operating system is called UEFI, or Unified Extensible Firmware Interface.
It ensures that system hardware is functioning properly before handing off control to the bootloader,
which in turn enables the Windows operating system to load, and shows you the login screen.
While UEFI is often seen as a direct successor to BIOS, or basic input/output system,
UEFI is actually an extension of BIOS and is more commonly called UEFI BIOS.
More recently built Lenovo systems use the UEFI BIOS version, so today we’re taking a tour.
Before going any further, we want to stress how important it is that inexperienced users
do not change UEFI settings without the instruction or guidance of a support technician.
Making changes without knowing what you’re doing could lead to mismatched configurations that won’t allow your system to boot
and may require that you take it in to a Lenovo service provider to get it up and running again in proper order.
Entering the UEFI startup menu varies among Lenovo systems,
but generally you’ll access it by repeatedly pressing a function key, such as F1 or F2, as soon as you turn on your PC.
Check your computer’s user guide for the specific key for your system.
You may hear a beep, and your PC will interrupt the boot process and show you the UEFI.
Similarly, if your system is running Windows 10 or 11, you can enter UEFI through Settings.
Open Settings, click on Update and Security, click on Recovery, and click on the Restart Now button in the advanced startup section.
In the new screen, click on Troubleshoot, select Advanced Options, then select UEFI Firmware Settings.
Click the Restart button, and your system will boot into UEFI.
Entering UEFI setup will show a layout consisting of a text-based menu that you navigate with the keyboard.
Depending on the Lenovo system model, UEFI may support an enhanced graphical interface that supports mouse and touchpad inputs.
The available options within the UEFI menu will vary depending on system configurations,
but generally you can count on the same tabs to appear each time:
Main, Config, Date and Time, Security, Startup, and Restart.
At the bottom of each page, you’ll see links for Help, Setup Defaults, Exit, and Save & Exit.
Help provides guidance on items like navigation, troubleshooting, and keyboard shortcuts.
Setup Defaults will override any configuration changes you’ve made and load with the default UEFI configuration.
Exit will exit UEFI without saving your changes.
Save & Exit will save any configuration changes and exit, continuing with startup.
In the Main window of the UEFI setup, you’ll see information relevant to your specific system,
including the BIOS version, machine type model number, system serial numbers, CPU type and speed, installed RAM, and more.
If you have any software bundled with the hardware from the original equipment manufacturer, you’ll find your OS license number on this page too.
In the Config submenu, you can update configurations pertaining to system settings like network options including Wi-Fi and wake on LAN,
USB always-on mode, keyboard and mouse input and function key settings, display settings to set devices and graphics performance, and CPU performance.
Take note of the Power setting, which is particularly useful when deactivating a notebook’s built-in battery prior to performing any consumer-safe service on your machine.
This is also where you can change the Setup user interface, or UI,
if you want to change to a simple text interface that utilizes your keyboard rather than mouse or touchpad.
In the Date and Time submenu, you can update the local system date and time.
This is particularly useful after you replace the CMOS or coin-cell battery in your system.
In the Security submenu, you can update and configure settings related to items like various system or administrative passwords and when to use them,
fingerprint authentication if available, enabling or disabling UEFI BIOS update method options, I/O port accessibility, tamper detection, and more.
In the Startup submenu, you can manage settings pertaining to booting up.
Within Boot, you can edit the Boot Order, which tells UEFI in which order devices should be read for kicking off startup.
This is helpful for when you need to boot your computer from a secondary device like a USB drive or an external hard drive and want to prioritize that device above Windows Boot Manager.
You can also change if you want to boot from devices on your network, boot up in Quick Mode or Diagnostics Mode,
or lock the boot order if you don’t want changes made to your device priority.
Finally, in the Restart submenu, you can save or discard all of your changes and restart with or without the new configuration settings,
reset all changes to load the setup defaults,
or discard or save changes without exiting UEFI.
Once you exit, UEFI will restart your system and hand off the startup process to your operating system
with or without your setup changes, depending on what you selected prior to exiting.
If your system cannot boot after the changes you’ve made, you may need assistance from a service provider.
For more helpful tips and tricks about Lenovo and the BIOS and UEFI systems, visit www.lenovo.com/support/bios.