Bios problem

Ron240

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I have just had a strange thing happen today(twice!),and was wondering if anybody can offer an explanation?

My PC is a home build,approx 4.5 years old,and was quite high spec at the time.
My motherboard is an MSI 865PE Neo2,and my problem is concerning the bios.

First of all,my PC switched its self off,and when i restarted it would not boot....so i checked the bios and found that all date,boot sequence,and IDE configuration had been lost.
I have 3 hard disks - 2 SATA and 1 PATA,with my MBR on one of the SATA drives.
The bios was only recognising my PATA drive,so this is obviously what was causing the boot failure.

I left it for a while then went back to it......everything was still messed up,but this time the bios was recognising my SATA drives...so i reconfigured everything the way it was,saved and rebooted - excellent,everything was working perfectly. :)

Then...a little while ago,my PC suddenly restarted its self and did not boot. I checked the bios and it was back to the original problem.

I left it for approx 30 mins,and when booting to the bios,my SATA drives were there,so i was able to reset everythign once again,save and exit...and everything is working fine as i type this.

I suspect it might happen again(but then again it might not),so im wondering what could be causing it? Things that come to mind are....CMOS battery,or some kind of overheating problem....but for the latter i dont think it would affect the bios.

Can anybody shed some light on this please?
 
if it's not holding the time it could well be the bios battery is nearly dead
Yes...the problem would certainly suggest the CMOS battery....but would this cause the original shut down,and the subsequent restart. :confused:

Just to add a bit more information and possible confusion...i forgot to mention that when it originally shut down,i was attempting to plug in a USB modem.
 
If your motherboard is 4.5 years old then there is a good possibility that the capacitors (round items about 10-15mm high) may have gone faulty. They normally go around the power regulators (big black chips sometimes with heatsinks on) around the CPU.

When the capacitors go sometimes they split their tops either a complete split or buldging, they should be flat topped. Also sometimes they will have a green 'goo' that seeps out of the base. You can have a quick look around to see if this is the case. If these have gone faulty you will need someone to solder in new ones if you want to keep your motherboard working.

I have replaced these myself and have seen prior to fault finding computers that randomly restart and shutdown. If it goes on for too long then it will take out your processor and other boards connected to the motherboard.

Not good news but hopefully helpful.
 
Doubt it's your battery.

Sound as mentioned above like a failing capacitor or circuit on the board.

BIOS is detecting a fault but is unsure what it is so when rebooting it is defaulting to factory defaults in order to protect attached hardware.
 
Thanks for the replies Papua and Uridium,
I have just had a good close look at my board,and have to say...everything still looks brand new...once i blew away a little dust obviously. :) I do routine maintenance like this...so we're not talking the inside of a hoover bag here. :D

The problem you both mention certainly sounds very plausible to me, particularly when the Bios resets to defaults after a fault is detected(although not sure about the year always going to 2028).

Since the original problem 3 days ago,i have had one more random restart, and an enforced restart due to my screen going absolutely haywire, but both times it has booted ok and ran perfectly after that.

Looks like im going to have to monitor this situation, and see how(or if)it developes.

Coputer problems can be a real pain....especially when they are intermittent. :rolleyes:
 

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