Compaq keeps losing BIOS settings

jfish

VIP Member
VIP Member
Joined
Sep 21, 2007
Messages
3,203
Reaction score
699
a friend has a Compaq Presario (used the MS 7184 motherboard)

everytime you do a cold shut down and restart it, it loses the BIOS settings, as you get the usual checksum error message.

some times when you start up nothing on the screen at all no POST messages

also noticed in Windows XP SP 3 you can be using the machine, but all of a sudden is freezes but you can move the mouse and the mouse pointer moves on the screen and keyboard working (pressing CAPS lock the light light up and vice versa) (I know how bizarre)

done the following

replaced RAM
replaced CMOS battery
replaced Hard Drive
unplugged all PCI cards
cleared CMOS settings
Upgraded BIOS from Compaq website
reinstalled fresh XP (on 2 different hard drives)

any ideas anyone
 
Sounds like MB problem with the cmos chip going us but that is not a defo.

When you did a cmos reset did you remove the battery for about 2 mins or did you do a cmos jumper change, which has to be done with the pc disconnected or else damage can occur?

Is the new battery OK, as you never know?

Also maybe try running something like BartPE, on boot, from a cd to see if the PC will boot without anything other than BartPe, at least this would give you a firm idea it's not CPU problems and if PC is behaving proerly, save the cmos issue. It's a freebie and you can get it from

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/
 
Back
Top