New BIOS Battery

Hi, Nut sure what happened to this older PC PIII XP Pro on boot up it stopped and said it could not load correct CMOS and will change to "Load Safe BIOS Configuration. After reboot it started up ok, but Time and Date was well out.
Would this be a faulty BIOS Battery or faulty Power Supply, my guess it would be one of the two, I have never come across this before so I am just guessing.
hawk22

 

Hi Hawk22,

No problems...I wouldn't think. Are you sure it wasn't a "Checksum Error ". These usually occur after a reset of the BIOS/CMOS. If you remove the battery for a period of time it will lose it's settings (the battery holds the BIOS settings).

The BIOS has probably been reset to default values, including the time. You should be able to readjust the time setting from within Windows (if not from within the BIOS).

“Load Safe BIOS Configuration" means it has reverted to minimal settings. Check in the BIOS for a menu "Load Optimal Settings" or something similar, that will revert the settings to "normal ".

Matt

 

Hi Matt, thanks for the reply, I am actually concerned about the Powersupply, I started the old dear up and she booted ok no problems there, but then I had a look in the diagnostics, and what I saw there I had not seen there before.
In the Voltages the +5V = 4.90
+12V = 11.69
Debug Info F 93.00
Debug Info T 80.88.8A
Debug Info V 8ACCCBC6C3

I can not remember ever having seen this Debug Info there and I am used to seeing the +5 and +12 just marginally above 5 and 12.
I think that I probably should change the PSU over.
What are your thoughts on that.
cheers
hawk22

 

Probably the best way to test your power supply is with a.....*drum roll*...power supply tester.

Now that you're booting okay, are you experiencing any problems? I would use the PC and watch its behavior before replacing the PSU. I'm not familiar with the diagnostic messages you posted - are they displayed in the bios?

Obviously, this could be a sign of the rig showing its age but flukey things do happen. A few days ago, I went to insert a USB flash drive in my PC and it apparently had some static buildup. As soon as the flash drive touched the metal of the socket, the PC rebooted and I got some POST error about "PCI IRQ Routing Failure ". The PC continued to reboot and had no problems but very weird.

 

Hawk:

Just a general comment that may or may not be applicable to your situation and your machine. You may already be aware - so consider this as an overview for others with a similar circumstance. That little CMOS battery holds the power to maintain the BIOS settings which retain information about your system's hardware. It remembers all kinds of things. When the battery goes out, your computer's BIOS "forgets" what kind of hardware is in it and whats supposed to do what. Things that used to work or hard drives that used to be recognized just don't do what they used to do. The computer forgot what your "settings" were.

Now, that little battery should last a good five years plus but if your machine has been unplugged for an extended period, the battery life is shortened considerably. When the battery is replaced, one usually has to reset the basic in out system settings, BIOS. Then the computer remembers the hardware, the hardware configuration and what its supposed to do. It knows what device to boot to and the order, what kind of memory and the memory speeds, the types, heads, cylinders and order of hard drives. That little battery is responsible for supplying a constant power source to the BIOS which is responsible for remembering all kinds of stuff and how to coordinate the interaction between all things hardware-wise.

Typically, if a battery goes bad, a computer will retain its settings until removed from a power source. Most modern motherboards maintain a 3V power state even when the computer's power switch is turned off. However, when a battery does fail, its pretty easy to replace it, reset the BIOS and get the system back to doing just exactly what it used to do.

 

Hi, thanks very good valuable information. Now that you mention forgetting hardware that reminds me that when it happened a box had come up with something about a controller not to sure now if it was IDE but my first thought when it came up was the HDD gone bad, but then the CMOS thing came up and upon the first re-boot it was looking for new Hardware that it found but could not find drivers for, but then never asked for it again, so your mention of the hardware reminded me. I am going to get a Power Supply Tester and check that out but the BIOS Battery keeps sticking in my mind even more now after reading Rocksters comments.
Rockster what exactly is involved in resetting basic in out system settings.
Like a BIOS update. If I have to do that than I might at the same time stick another CPU in, the present PIII is a 866MHz and I have a couple of PIII 1000 Coppermines lying around.
hawk22

 

hawk22:

Setting or resetting a BIOS can go from the easiest of tasks to a major challenge. In its simplest form, one taps the delete key (will vary by mfg) during startup and upon entry to the BIOS, looks for the default setup, corrects the date and time and exits saving changes. When the system is running properly and all devices and drivers are installed, one can opt to leave well enough alone or go back in and select optimal settings and again exit while saving changes. Thats about as far as the average user wants to go.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are enough individual settings and adjustments that can be made to a system BIOS on a good motherboard to require days of testing to optimize a system. The best advice to follow is to keep it simple stupid - KISS. If you want to learn more about this, Adrian's RojakPot is the best BIOS site on the Internet. There is a public access site and a subscription based site which covers more than one could ever imagine.

"Flashing" a BIOS chip to update the actual version is a different matter and I'd advise most to stay away from this. Similarly, if I were in your shoes and had a PIII 866 running well, I don't think I'd be looking to "stick" a PIII 1000 on there. There isn't going to be a noticeable gain in performance.

 

OK thanks for that, just one more ask, in your opinion what does it sound like, would you change the BIOS Battery or leave it as it is and wait and see if it happens again.
Oh yes one more technical one, if anyone can advise. As I had mentioned I was going to buy a Power Supply Tester, but strangely enough as I was looking at some one retailer actually noted that if you have a Multimeter you are wasting your money buying this tester. How would I know which is the +3V- +5V 12V and so on and earth. Any thoughts on that.
hawk22

 

If it were me, I'd change out the battery in a heartbeat. For $2.50-$3.00, call it insurance. Its most likely a CR2032. Just be careful when you pull the old one - there are a few different types of compression clips that hold most batteries in place - go slow and don't force anything.

As to the retailer's technical advice - personally, I'd start with a PSU tester as Chiles4 recommended. Now, if you want to try a multimeter, get ready for some technical reading. Having both may be the ideal situation but if you don't want to take the time to study the 20 or 24 pin pinouts while also learning how to use a multimeter, the PSU tester is the fastest most reliable way to go.

 

It is just a battery that is easy to replace
Some of the time if the computer is left on the battery will charge enough of aresidual charge to hold.
Nothing serious.

 

Thanks Guy's, I will get a new Battery over the weekend.
hawk22

 

Well I replaced the Battery as Rockster sugested in a "Heartbeat" and all is working fine (so far). I tested the old battery and it showed 3.03 V, but that was after the PC was powered on for about 6hr. whereas when the CMOS error had occured it had been off for about 6 days. Wait and See.
hawk22