Compaq Armada 1700 – CMOS/Diags Question

I’m trying to access CMOS on a Compaq Armada 1700 laptop. I’ve read that you need to press F2 during POST to do this, however so far this has not worked. There are no prompts during post, nor is there a “blinking cursor” which is where most instructions say I should press F2. All I get is a Compaq splash screen which clears and immediately displays the windows start screens (as usual). I’ve tried flashing the bios to the most recent version, which has also been uneffective. Could you please enlighten me?