May 10, 200817 yr Heya. So today I went to turn my PC on and it did nothing. It was on, and the blue LED was showing, but the monitor wasn't getting a signal and the fan wasn't going or anything. I turned it off and then on again, but this time nothing happened at all. No blue LED even. For the past year (or two) I've been running the comp on a low CMOS battery... so whenever I'd turn it on when I woke up, it'd often show a time many hours slow. Other than that, there have been no indications I need to replace the battery. Would a dry CMOS battery cause it not to start at all? Dammit, I wanted to finish Baldur's Gate 1 this weekend.
May 10, 200817 yr I once had a problem like this and it turned out the BIOs chip had blown-up. "Geez. It's like we lost some sort of bet and ended up saddled with a bunch of terrible new posters on this forum." -Hurlshot
May 11, 200817 yr Author Well, you might be right. It's definitely not the battery. The biggest indicator of this was that a new battery didn't work. And I don't think it's the PSU because a few LEDs are on... the PSU were broken, nothing would be on, right? So it sounds like you might be on the money... how do I fix that?
May 11, 200817 yr Well, you could see if the chip itself can be replaced - but it might be better, and easier, to get a new motherboard. In my case the PC was going to be retired soon anyways, so I just savaged what I could and disposed of the bad part. "Geez. It's like we lost some sort of bet and ended up saddled with a bunch of terrible new posters on this forum." -Hurlshot
May 11, 200817 yr Author Well, you could see if the chip itself can be replaced - but it might be better, and easier, to get a new motherboard. In my case the PC was going to be retired soon anyways, so I just savaged what I could and disposed of the bad part. True. I've been planning to get a new PC for ages now. It's just a matter of money.
May 11, 200817 yr If money is an issue, try looking for an older model that could hold you over until you can upgrade - it may not be the best part but it's still better than nothing. You might also want to make sure the hard-drives are ok, as when my BIOs went it wiped out the boot sector of both C and D - although that was fixed by getting a friend to do a quick replacement of the missing items. "Geez. It's like we lost some sort of bet and ended up saddled with a bunch of terrible new posters on this forum." -Hurlshot
May 15, 200817 yr Author This was the older model. I bought it in the university classifieds for $300 AUD. AMD Athlon XP 3000+ 512MB DDR1 RAM Geforce 4 Ti 64MB graphics card 2*50GB HDs Ah well, lucky I bought another similar system for $200 the same way... although it has a Voodoo 3, lol.
May 15, 200817 yr Ah well, lucky I bought another similar system for $200 the same way... although it has a Voodoo 3, lol. Haha, I have a Voodoo 5 lying around in some drawer somewhere. Never did I think my old Voodoo 5 would be more powerful than a GPU someone actually uses I bought it for like $15 once when I was trying to get my old Elder Scrolls games up and running. The ones with Glide 3DFX support. Swedes, go to: Spel2, for the latest game reviews in swedish!
May 15, 200817 yr Well, you might be right. It's definitely not the battery. The biggest indicator of this was that a new battery didn't work. actually, it doesn't sound like he actually replaced the battery. yes, if the CMOS battery is dead your pooter probably would not boot. try replacing that, first, then check back. taks comrade taks... just because.
May 15, 200817 yr Just a hint: very old motherboards didn't have flash memory to store their BIOS data. They actually used a battery powered memory to store that information, which meant that once the battery died, so did the computer. Forever. It was said that the batteries would last like 10-15 years, but lots and lots of old motherboards have died since, so that was a little too optimistic. Swedes, go to: Spel2, for the latest game reviews in swedish!
May 15, 200817 yr actually, it doesn't sound like he actually replaced the battery. Yeah, I did not - in my case the chip itself had melted. "Geez. It's like we lost some sort of bet and ended up saddled with a bunch of terrible new posters on this forum." -Hurlshot
May 16, 200817 yr Just a hint: very old motherboards didn't have flash memory to store their BIOS data. They actually used a battery powered memory to store that information, which meant that once the battery died, so did the computer. Forever. It was said that the batteries would last like 10-15 years, but lots and lots of old motherboards have died since, so that was a little too optimistic. which was one of the most moronic decisions i've ever seen from the PC industry. a melted bios chip would definitely imply an inability to boot, btw. taks comrade taks... just because.
May 20, 200817 yr Author Well, you might be right. It's definitely not the battery. The biggest indicator of this was that a new battery didn't work. actually, it doesn't sound like he actually replaced the battery. yes, if the CMOS battery is dead your pooter probably would not boot. try replacing that, first, then check back. taks I did try replacing the battery - which is what your were replying to. But I see a green LED on the mobo and my network card has it's orange LED on (but when I press on, the blue LED doesn't turn on). There is no sound from the computer - the fan isn't going. So it seems the failure it start isn't a power problem (PSU or battery). It's a relatively recent mobo - has an Athlon XP, guessing gigabyte. Will probably be getting a new mobo soon - oh well, thanks anyway guys. Edited May 20, 200817 yr by Krezack
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