My really odd computer problem

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  • October 8, 2008 at 2:39 pm #76747
    FlakBait
    Keymaster

    Well, I've given this a shot on other forums so I thought I'd try my luck here as well. A couple of days ago I got back from Atlanta and went to turn on my computer, only to have it sit there and stare at me. Everything powered up but the graphics card fan stayed on high speed, there was no POST or BIOS loading screen. So I took the case apart cleaned it up and turned it back on and off it went. I did get the message "your previous attempt at overclocking has failed default settings loaded" or something like that which I didn't understand because I never overclock anything. Sometime at night the power flashed off and when I went to turn it back on I had the same problem. I tried unplugging things one at a time to see if something was shorted out, no luck, I hit the BIOS reset switch on the motherboard, nothing. So I popped the CMOS battery out the motherboard figuring I'd let it sit for a while and try it. I started watching TV, got distracted and turned it on without the battery in place and everything booted up fine so I shut it down popped the battery BACK in and was right back to having nothing. So as long as I leave the stupid battery out my computer boots but if I put it back in it doesn't. I can not understand why the stupid CMOS battery would affect this. Anyone got any ideas?

    October 9, 2008 at 6:49 am #76748
    CDR
    Participant

    Sounds like your bios rom went kablooey.
    Leave the battery out and replace the motherboard whenever you can.
    You may be able to replace the bios rom if you manage to find somewhere another motherboard of the same model with something else broken.
    Good luck man,

    CDR

    October 9, 2008 at 7:58 am #76749
    FlakBait
    Keymaster

    Sounds like your bios rom went kablooey.
    Leave the battery out and replace the motherboard whenever you can.
    You may be able to replace the bios rom if you manage to find somewhere another motherboard of the same model with something else broken.
    Good luck man,

    CDR

    I had someone send me a message on another forum, I just checked and my system is only picking up 1 of the 2GB of RAM I have installed. I'm going to try swapping sockets and if that doesn't work I guess I need new RAM.

    October 12, 2008 at 5:14 am #76750
    CDR
    Participant

    It may be some autoconfiguration bios feature that saves the faulted memory settings and since those wont work…
    If there's no battery, It cant save the bad memory setting and uses a hazard-safe default instead. Still, the BIOS should NOTIFY you if it has made auto-configurations and ask you to accept them.
    That ROM still looks suspicious to me.
    >_>
    Anyway. Try to boot with just one module. If one of them gives you troubles, replace it at once.
    Good luck,

    CDR

    October 13, 2008 at 4:06 pm #76751
    Fett
    Participant

    The only thing I can suggest is to make an offering to the computer gods.

    They usually like teacakes.

    October 13, 2008 at 6:09 pm #76752
    GWHH
    Participant

    You need a new CMOS battery it sounds like!

    October 14, 2008 at 4:48 am #76753
    FlakBait
    Keymaster

    Thanks for the advice CDR. I did indeed get the "your system configuration has changed press F1 to enter setup press F2 to load default values and continue" once I pulled the RAM out of the number 3 DIMM on the motherboard. Then I changed some of the BIOS settings and shut off the computer for a while and everything was just like it was so I bought a pair of new RAM chips since they were on sale, a little faster then what I had and everything is working fine now.

    The CMOS battery was the first thing I changed, hoping it would be something cheap and easy :p

    Now if you'll excuse me I need to go find out what a teacake is  ::)
    šŸ˜€

    October 14, 2008 at 5:47 am #76754
    FlakBait
    Keymaster

    Well I can't edit my last post, but it appears you may be right about the BIOS ROM as well CDR. Just now I reset my computer after a game locked up and I got the same stupid black screen with no activity at startup again. I turned the surge protector poweroff and when I turned everything back on it booted up and is detecting all the RAM this time though. I'm going to go hit the MSI site and look for some sort of diagnostic tool.

    October 15, 2008 at 8:50 am #76755
    CDR
    Participant

    Ok. Good luck. Keep me posted.

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