SOLUTION: Press [F2] to Enter Setup does NOT Appear - Lenovo G470

Question

After spending an inordinate amount of time searching the internet about my problem, and then contacting Lenovo (who told me it was hardware and I needed to return all of the laptops I bought), I managed to magically find the solution to my problem.  Since it wasn't documented elsewhere on the internet, I thought I'd create a post for it here.
The problem I was having was that my Lenovo G470 laptop did not display Press F2 to Enter Setup during the boot process, and because of this, no amount of hammering the F2 button would allow access to the BIOS.  I attempted all of the standard fixes, pulled the battery, held power down for 30 seconds, removed the HDD -- nothing would cause this to appear.  Since it was happening on all 3 of the G470s we just purchased, I didn't believe it was hardware.  I reached out to Lenovo Premium Support, and after about 3 minutes of discussion, "Paul" informed me that all three machines were defective and would have to be sent back in for repair, and it would take 4-6 weeks for repair and diagnosis.  
As I had been noodling around with the machines for a few days, ONE of the three ended up showing the bios options during the boot process.  At that point, I had been hitting just about every single key on the keyboard during the boot process, so I couldn't identify what it was that I did that caused the options to appear.  A little more troubleshooting and I figured it out:
Lenovo G470 machines equipped with the EFI bios do NOT by default show the Press F2 to enter Setup.  The only way to make this appear is to hold the "B" key on the keyboard during power-on.  Once you've done that, the options to enter setup will appear and they will reappear at every boot (matter of fact, I've been unable to find a way to make them go away again, no matter what I hold during bootup).
So, if you find yourself with a G470 and you can't enter the bios and F2 doesn't work -- hold the B key during boot.  The options should appear and you should be able to gain entry into the BIOS.

Answer 1

tjefferies,
Wow!  Thanks for sharing this - will be sure to share with support.   We really appreciate your discovery and sharing this with the community.   I'm not sure why they quoted 4-6 weeks or repair.  Perhaps 4-6 days, counting shipping, but not weeks.  Will address that as well.
Do you happen to have your service case number #? WNxxxxxx ?   If so, could you send to me via PM ?
Many thanks!
Mark
ThinkPads: S30, T43, X60t, X1, W700ds, IdeaPad Y710, IdeaCentre: A300, IdeaPad K1
Mark Hopkins
Program Manager, Lenovo Social Media (Services)
twitter @lenovoforums
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