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Startup Stalls at BIOS screen

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by steveboard

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Recently my Dell Dimension desktop began halting its startup at the screen that reports hardware configuration. This requires a "Press " and Windows (XP) proceeds. This is new behavior on this 7 year-old system and I don't see anything in the BIOS setup that would control it. I have not changed hard drives, Windows, or other logical culprits. ChkDsk reports no HD errors. No startup programs inside Windows seem responsible.
Can someone suggest a solution to this minor nuisance?

4 replies

by robo_dev

Does the time by chance default to 1/1/1980??

by tintoman

this is a classic sign of a flat cmos battery
it isn't critical but you need to attend to it because if the system date and time are wrong your windows updates will not be downloaded

by oh smeg

Looking in the BIOS and disabling the [b]Halt on All Errors Option[/b]

This will allow the system to continue on without stopping to tell you it has a problem.

But as there is a problem with the unit I would get it checked out and if possible fixed before it fails completely and leaves you in a mess.

Col

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