CMOS error

Markjf

Hi Guys,

My sister was having trouble with her Packard bell PC and asked me to have a look at it. first of all it’s about 3 to 4years old a 1.4ghz AMD running windows xp sp2.

The problem she was having was that it wasn’t shutting down fully and to turn it off she unplugged it from the wall, this worked for a while until she had a CMOS error on the boot screen and no matter what she pressed it wouldn’t load.
Also it was making 3 beeps sounds.

She dropped it over to me I first replaced the cmos battery and reset the jumper on the mother board I got it running and booted into windows while in windows it works get no problems but once I try and reboot it could take up to ten attempts to get it to booted also while in windows if I click on restart windows the pc won’t shut itself down.

I am thinking that there is a fatal fault in the CMOS chip and would require a new motherboard are is there something I am missing?
I am in windows on the system now writing this with no problem I was also able to backup my sisters files from the hard drive so she is at least happy with that

Thanks mark

parliament

Have you tried flashing the BIOS or upgrading to the latest BIOS version?

Markjf

Thanks for the quick reply,

Yes I downloaded the new bios for that motherboard from the Packard bell website and installed it.
The thing is that I get different results each time I try and boot it up, sometimes it makes no beeps but I hear the fans and hard drive running and the lights come on the front but it doesn't boot up any screen and then I try it and I get 1 to 4 beeps and i get a black screen with "wrong CMOS settings press F2 to enter setup or F1 to load defaults"
And then again I get 1 beep and it loads windows normally.

It has me confused

Mark.

uberpixie

Markjf wrote:

Thanks for the quick reply,

Yes I downloaded the new bios for that motherboard from the Packard bell website and installed it.
The thing is that I get different results each time I try and boot it up, sometimes it makes no beeps but I hear the fans and hard drive running and the lights come on the front but it doesn't boot up any screen and then I try it and I get 1 to 4 beeps and i get a black screen with "wrong CMOS settings press F2 to enter setup or F1 to load defaults"
And then again I get 1 beep and it loads windows normally.

It has me confused

Mark.

Quick question: is the date and time wrong and have to be reset every time you boot up?

If the bios is not saving its settings, and you have to reset them everytime you start up, then it could be that the CMOS battery is dead and needs to be replaced, especially if the machine is a couple of years old.

Just one little thing to cross of the check list.

Markjf

thanks uberpixie,

But as I said in the first post i have changed the CMOS battary, the time and date stay up to date on each boot unless i reset the cmos with the jumer on the mother board

mark

Mountjoy Mugger

Depending on the BIOS, you might find this page helpful. http://www.computerhope.com/beep.htm This lists what various numbers of beeps at bootup signify.

HTH

uberpixie

Markjf wrote:

thanks uberpixie,

But as I said in the first post i have changed the CMOS battary, the time and date stay up to date on each boot unless i reset the cmos with the jumer on the mother board

mark

Sorry! half asleep today:o.

Well you have your bases well covered if you replaced the CMOS battery and put on the latest BIOS.

Other than that all you can do is strip the machine down to cpu and mobo and work from there, which I'm sure you have already done:D.

Be careful about a new mobo, oem copies of windows that come with machines are sometimes hobbled to only work with the company's supplied motherboards, with the right rev of bios.

You might, if you are unlucky have to organize a new copy of windows if you do manage to get a replacement motherboard off ebay.

BostonB

Might be a stick of RAM gone bad. Did you run a memtest on the ram?

Markjf

Thanks guys for all the suggestion I have strip it down to the bare bones and it’s still acting funny and BostonB I did run a memory test and it was all clear.

It seems to be giving a steady 2 beep now and in the AMI bios chat that comes up as a Parity circuit failure, so I thing the sister will be buying a new pc as it’s not worth trying to get a mother for a system this old when she could pick a new one from Dell for a few hundred.

Thanks again
Mark

Anti

If you have a spare psu, try that, I bet it will work.

Markjf

Anti wrote:

If you have a spare psu, try that, I bet it will work.

Just tried that with the PSU from my own PC and still acting up. At this stage I would just love to know what exactly is wrong with it even if it was not repairable.

Thanks mark.

Mountjoy Mugger

Is there an option to disable parity checking in the BIOS? - Long shot, I know.

Markjf

There doesn’t seem to be an option to disable parity in the bios Mountjoy.

It’s madding; I seem to get 3 scenarios

(1) I press the on button and it doesn’t make any beeps and nothing comes on the screen but the lights, fan and hard drive are running.
(2) I press the on button and get 2 beeps and it boots to the screen windows was shut down wrong …………….. do you want to start it normally, (I haven’t got the CMOS ERROR in a while)
(3) I press the button and I get 1 beep (normal) and it boots into windows.


When I click shut down in windows it shuts the system down normally but if I click on restart windows it shuts down windows but the PC keeps running.

AS Anti said above it could be the PSU, but as I ran it from my Pc PSU it seems to rule that out. The thing is when it’s running it’s as steady as rock I even updated it with all the patches from Microsoft and anti virus.

O I give up

Thanks guys

Mark.