Have to reset CMOS everytime PC starts up

white_falcon

Hi lads,
I need to reset the CMOS everytime my PC starts up.

If I don't, I do not get the beep, and the start screen showing the motherboard name and picture doesnt come up - nothing happens.

When I do reset it, and it all loads up, on the loading screen with all the black and white info, it says "CMOS error defaults loaded"

I know someone advised me to check my RAM a while back, and this hasnt made a difference. Also the problem went away when I moved from Vista to XP, but now has come back again. I was also advised to download a RAM checker program or something but can't remember?

This has happened since I built my computer from scratch a few months ago.

Heres the shopping list of everything that is in my PC

http://www.komplett.ie/k/shoplist.aspx?mode=receive&si=522703&su=60254368-0031-4DE1-A296-9F8AF70CFC30

dazftw

hmm this is still bugging you.. Have you tried updating your bios? Thats just a random guess! I was having constant crashes and bsods up til awhile ago.. I said I might aswell update the bios cause it was starting to get on my nerves.

I did this and since then its be rock solid not one bsod in nearly a month!

white_falcon

yea havent tried that yet. might give it a go 2night

XJR

Have you replaced the CMOS battery - sounds like the most likely cause to me.

duridian

XJR is right, this sounds like the CMOS battery is dead. Just buy a new one, most motherboards use the flat "20 penny sized" batteries model no. CR2032. Loads of shops sell them now, jewellers, chemists shops or motor parts stores especially seem to stock them.

white_falcon

nope, iv replaced the CMOS battery too with a new one. no difference

TonyM.

It is probably the ram not getting enough voltage try it at 2.1v or 2.2v .

astrofool

It sounds like it's booting with something out of spec (overclocked possibly?), and on the reset goes back to the safe defaults. Definitely try and update the bios, also turn off any of the auto overclocking features and relax all the ram timings to see if you can get a successful boot.

white_falcon

not over clocked at all

nothing overclocked

il try bios update and let u know if that works

duridian

Does it happen only when you do a cold boot, or does it also happen when you restart the computer from Windows?

white_falcon

both...happens if i restart the PC - it will shut down windows, go to the black screen before restarting, but then nothing happens. it doesnt restart, but just freezes on the black screen.

it turns off fine

PogMoThoin

Sounds like a ram issue? Are you sure your giving them the right voltage? have you moved it off auto & manually set it?

What ram? What voltage? Post a cpuz screenie as well just to check timings are right. Take a pic of the bios ram settings screen also.

white_falcon

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Sounds like a ram issue? Are you sure your giving them the right voltage? have you moved it off auto & manually set it?

What ram? What voltage? Post a cpuz screenie as well just to check timings are right. Take a pic of the bios ram settings screen also.

hmmm im not too sure about any of that. as in i dont know how to do that. what do i use to check the voltages - i haven't changed anything anyway from auto to manually for voltages - i dont know how lol....

also, the RAM im using is
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=333974

i still havent tried updating the BIOS - I know this is stupid, but can someone tell me how. its just a matter of downloading the file from the manufacturers site, installing it, then rebooting right?

dazftw

Im not sure about abit but there should be software(if you cant do it any other way with a floppy or flash drive) that will do it. There was for my motherboard Asus people told me not to use it but I did and it went fine. I just made sure there was nothing else running in the background.

Should give google a try see what comes up for updating your board in particular!