Re: PC only boots after on/off/on cycle ?

Your damn battery is dead in your PC!!!!

That is the way I figure it.

Check the time/date before you connect to the internet.

Don...

-- Don McKenzie

$30 for an Olinuxino Linux PC:

The World's Cheapest Computer: DuinoMite the PIC32 $25 Basic Computer-MicroController

In a typical PC, a CR2032 coin cell battery, maintains BIOS settings and the real time clock. If the CR2032 is discharged, there is nothing to maintain accurate time when the computer is unplugged. If you don't want to replace the coin cell battery, then the time settings must be re-entered, on each power-up of the PC. Enter BIOS and set the clock, save, exit, boot.

Paul

It's more than that. All the BIOS settings are in the RAM that is battery backed up. In the old days, you'd have to enter details of the hard drive (or select from a menu) and that would go every time the computer forgot. Same with boot sequence and all that.

With a dead battery, the cluelss might believe the computer is broken.

Let's not forget this is "Radium". A little knowledge is worse than a lot. He'll pull out all kinds of things, only to realize the plug wasn't in the wall (if he notices that). Or a different way of looking at it is that he's posting for attention, a classic troll, and he has no real problem or any need to "design a great 1998 computer today", he's doing it to get a reaction. Note the crossposting, it's not as bad as in the old days, but it's consistent with someone wanting to be annoying.

Michael

Naw, it's not Radium. Radium is much more destructive. And Radium has certain trademarks that are entirely missing from Skybuck posts. So they're not the same person. Radium throws tantrums more easily. Radium can't help itself.

Paul

I just bought a BiosedStar MB a couple months ago and returned it because it wouldn't hold BIOS settings. Who wants to turn on a computer that flashes in your face: Warning! Warning! Will Rogers -- Danger Due to CMOS MisMatch!

It wasn't a 2032 but close enough (according to WIKI) to open -very first thing- the computer next to it, handy dandy like, and pull its

Some -- not many, yet some nevertheless do have BIOS issues. Had another one, I sold identified for such, that had a knack for dropping CPU multipliers to x4 instead of x12, were the CPU properly picked up.

I flash them, too, first thing as a manner of course. Although the replacement for the BiosedStar, a nice little P4 Gigabytle, I did a revisionary flash to a BIOS dated prior to what was provided. Seemed different. How many people do you know that buy a new MB and put an old BIOS on it for no particular reason? It's not at all like I planned it.

(Actually, it had at USB slotted entry BIOS progressions, that, in order turn on USB S3, a normal series of recognizable USB settings had to be first engaged for an on state. However, I did, again without reason, leave on the S3, and that appeared caused me some grief because the computer wouldn't work right, had streaming/speed issues with USB and HDs, until S3 was disengaged. Of course not nearly as fast as this is transpiring. Hardly that. I suspect I may in the physics of anomalistic retaliation have been spirited to a rebuttal in form of a former BIOS revision. But, I've still got that S3 in there. Do you know what in hell it is?)

There's a lot more going on in the BIOS than the clock. If you used anything but the defaults, they need to be changed too. I just went thru a big hassle with system instability because I forgot to turn hyperthreading back on in the BIOS.

The sad part about this thread is that someone apparently in need of assistance asks for it, everyone including me jumps in to help, then the original poster either doesn't read the thread, or decides not to follow it, and doesn't respond in anyway.

Leaving all follow up posters to guess at the problem and the fix.

Don...

-- Don McKenzie

$30 for an Olinuxino Linux PC:

The World's Cheapest Computer: DuinoMite the PIC32 $25 Basic Computer-MicroController

Don, I'm amazed anyone who have been around these NG's for more than a month or so replies to "Skybuck".

You have to give him points for persistent trolling! :)

"any way'

IFYPFY

It's a dead battery.

Usenet line length should be held below 73 characters.

Hmmmm..... Just reset from 120 back to 72 Don't know why it gets out of wack from time to time. Could be the number of Tbird versions.

"Any way", appears OK now. :-)

Don...

At first it sounded logical, me being at a loss I gave it a shot, I went to the store and bought 2 batteries which are exactly like the previous one.

CR 2032 VARTA it says jul-2022 so I guess these batteries will last 10 years or so.

I tried it, I put them into the PC.

Today I booted the PC and nothing, again a black screen. I had to boot it twice.

Now that I think about it some more it wasn't logical after all.

I have never seen a PC boot to a black screen because of a dead battery.

It could probably simulate that scenerio by leaving the battery out of it... but won't do it now maybe later.

So another 10 bucks wasted but it was worth a shot.

Now back to other theories why this could be happening:

1. The motherboard is simply damage in some way when the previous power supply blew.

1. Perhaps the power on switch header is wrongly connected.

2. Perhaps it has something to do with the power on button. I never liked that button... I suspect it has something to do with it... maybe it produces a power surge of some kind.

Bye, Skybuck.

I have read all threads as usual... and I tried to fix it (battery replacement)... unfortunately no success so far.

I did try an overclock long ago to see how that turned out from 450 mhz to

Even my DreamPC sometimes had booting problems with this chieftec case and the seasonic s12 600 watt power supply... now my Pentium III 450 mhz uses it and some of that behaviour is the same but now even worse... it does it almost each time.

Later today I will pick up 2 new motherboards to fix my DreamPC 2006... and also new memory of the old Pentium III 450 mhz...

Once that works I will take pictures of the pentium III 450 mhz bios settings so you guys can have a look at it... maybe you will spot something weird... I never really had to set it up in the bios to get it booting properly so it's probably unlikely that it's a bios setting that is causing trouble but will show anyway.

Bye, Skybuck.

You'd know immediately if it were the power button. Had one with intermittent connects when engaging. MB responses are immediate to that sort of sensitivity. It'll stand out like a sore thumb or electrical shock. Power supplies, though, can be some of the worst ways to go about troubleshooting for problems that there wouldn't appear neither rhyme nor reason for. I know there have been instances when I simply took a spare power supply I had around for new stock, and simply connected it for nothing more worse for wear than a quick fix. An intuitive hunch that went down as quick as a Hostess Twinkie. Still, and though my days of buying dirt-cheap, no-name PS units may have passed, I'll still never again fully trust them. MBs, past PS units, just possibly might come in second place for insidious reasons for demon-possessed computers -- like the MB I had that slowly at first, but with a persistently advancing appetite, would eat up and then, sooner than later, spit out all my perfectly ruined but beautiful, hand-selected power supply units.

The PS is still the cheaper alternative to a no-brainer, bald-faced, modular swap-out fix attempt. Who says it has to be gamer or server grade? May be a local unit from a chain store, that from "all indications," didn't quite fit the bill for a return on purchase price, you do understand. Order out for the real stuff -- nor, a bad idea, at all, to have a spare from when they're on sale. It should then make a unmistakable difference, if the problem is one of emancipated electrons.

Uhhh... Yeah, what he said.

Damn, and I just finished upgrading my last remaining spare power supply with the rest of a new computer?

Is that what happened? Well, whaddya know.

Your graphics card is not connected properly.

Through you would be ideal. But such dreams never come true.

Your last few responses have been truly comical.