Went away for a week and came back, booted my pc but the loading Windows XP came up, then my screen goes black and then turns to "no signal" and turns orange.

i unplugged it for a few minutes then plugged it back and got a "checksum cmos error". f1 to continue, rebooted and it booted up into windows fine - but acting slow. so i gave it another reboot and it was fine.

however yesterday while printing it rebooted by itself or switched off, i cant remember. But after trying to start again it does the same thing, but cant fix it!

i can boot up to safe mode, no virus found afaik.

my brother says it might be the battery as the clock was reset after i unplugged it.

Any suggestions on what else it could be?

Plus are there different kind of battries? i have a shuttle and i was just wondering if i could get one from somewhere or does it need to be a mobo specific one.

Cheers!! :mrgreen:

Usually the battery is a CR2032, but doesnt sound like a battery issue.  Possibly PSU.

The BIOS battery expiring would be a likely candidate for your CMOS checksum errors and all the settings being reset, but as for why your PC is randomly rebooting that seems to be another issue at work.

As its the cheapest option try replacing the battery, they are dirt cheap (and yes they are all the same coni shaped cell batteries).

Take it out carefully and take it with you to an electricians/computer shop/hardware shop to be sure of getting the right replacement.

edit: Agree with Nath, you could have potential PSU issues.

Id be tempted to suggest that your gfx card is playing up, although it could just as easily be CPU/RAM or mobo :/

The fact that Safemode works suggests that the problem is either with a piece of HW that is not initialised within safemode (networking?) or a piece of hardware that is running under MS "safe" drivers when in safemode (like the gfx).
I think youre going to have to pull everything out and add it back in piece by piece to find the problem. Dont forget to disable the onboard lan in the BIOS.

You can test the BIOS battery pretty easily.
Boot up, go into BIOS and set the time. Save and exit.
Let it reboot and go back into BIOS to check the date/time is still correct.
Now switch the PC for ~20mins, then boot backup go back into BIOS and see if the date/time is still correct.

BIOS batteries are a specific type but afaik they can be swapped from one mobo to another.

Try cleaning the CPU HSF to start off with, you will have to take off the fan in order to do a reasonable job. Also remove dust from the motherboard. Then clean out the PSU but be careful.

It may need a reinstall of windaz.

sounds like a hardware fault.

My bet for most likely culprit would be the PSU as well, although it could also be the mobo. My better half has just had exactly the same problem and after replacing almost every component (including the CR2032 battery) it turned out to be a PSU that was dying slowly.

Quote from: Eggtasticosounds like a hardware fault.

yup - cant be more specific as a million things could cause that.  CMOS battery wont cause 90% of what youre describing so even if it has gone thats not your issue.



Frankly, you cant guess what itll be.  You have to unplug everything and go back to basics and work up.  People can suggest cpu, psu, whatever but theres so many potential causes you need to be stripped back to CPU and ram and work upwards.

There was no one else around to use it?

Im getting a foul play vibe here.

Well tried a different battery - same problem.

As i use to monitor i tried only one - it went further, but the xp "Welcome" was messed up, so i decided to try and old gfx card in (single monitor) and booted up.

So it must have been my gfx card - 6600gt. dont really have anywhere to test the card, in another pc.


thanks for all the help btw.