Hardware

Ask something
Question Locked

Bios question

0 helpful
6 replies

by loccrash1big

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

So I just built my daughter a comp; and this is whats in it...
Corsair Dual Channel TWINX 2048MB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz E.P.P. Memory (2 x 1024)
ntel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Processor - 2.40GHz, 8MB Cache, 1066MHz FSB, Kentsfield, Quad-Core, OEM,

EVGA nForce 680i SE SLI (TR Version) Motherboard - NVIDIA, Socket 775, ATX, Audio, SLI Ready, PCI Express, Dual Gigabit LAN, S/PDIF, USB 2.0 & Firewire, Serial ATA, RAID

Plextor PX-810SA/SW-BL SuperMulti DVD Burner - 18x DVD?R Burn, 16x DVD?R Read, 8x DVD+RW, 6x DVD-RW, 10x DVD?R DL, 12x DVD-RAM, SATA,

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB Hard Drive - 7200, 8MB, Serial ATA-300,

NVIDIA Quadro FX 1300 / 128MB DDR / PCI Express / Dual DVI / Stereo / Workstation / Video Card

Microsoft Windows XP Pro SP2

Thermaltake Black Kandalf LCS Full-Tower ATX Case with Clear Side, Front USB, FireWire, Audio Ports and Built-In Liquid Cooling System

This system ran awesome ..for about a week. Then today she got a boot disc error. So I checked all the connections. Then went to the bios to see what was up and found everything disabled. ??? So I reset the bios to default and everything is running fine. I'm trying to figure out why/ how the bios got changed. This puter isn't hooked to the net, and my daughter doesn't know the first thing about the bios or even how to get to it. Any body ever have this happen.

6 replies

by oh smeg

Doesn't mean that she hasn't changed things accidentally without knowing what it was that she was doing. Generally speaking BIOS changes require outside input to happen. If you have placed a BIOS Password into the setup you can then rule out an accidental change without knowing what it is that is being done.

If this happens again with a BIOS Password in place you need to look at what is loaded onto the machine as some games have the ability to alter the BIOS. It's possible that if your daughter has administrator privileges and installs applications to this system that something that has been installed has made the changes.

But the only way to be sure of this is to insert a BIOS Password to make certain that Human Action has not resulted in the changes happening. If you can rule out that you can then start to look at the Software load and try to find out what is causing the problem.

Col

by mjd420nova

Sometimes the system boards set idle in the box for extended periods and the CMOS battery can get very low. This can cause all kinds of strange problems. The battery holds the BIOS settings and keeps the clock running when shut off.

by alfa11

First of all... can I be your daughter???? :) LOL

Well, now let's go to the problem, have you checked that the mother doesn't have some of the auto overclock or something like that option enabled?

by loccrash1big

I might check the battery out. That should be easy enough. The only program she has loaded is a photo/sound editing suite by Sony. Its a pretty big program. Never had a problem on the other comp. One thing that happened was the mouse pointer( I was told) started jumping all over; so she shut the comp down. Thats when the problem started. On the next start-up the comp did a mem test, then couldn't see the opti drive or HD. Thats when I checked the bios settings. Now she says the comp goes to the boot menu on start-up ( sometimes).

by oh smeg

Some of these M'Boards come with the Battery disconnected and you need to alter a Jumper from 2-3 to 1-2 to enable Battery Power to the BIOS Chip. If that is the case here all that should be required is a jumper change that should have been listed in the M'Board manual.

Check this first before pulling the battery and replacing it.

Col

This discussion is closed to new replies.