CMOS checksum - a little confused

smashed

Hi.

My mums PC has had a CMOS checksum error, and my google suggested that this was related to a weak CMOS battery.

However, after leaving it a week (I was in USA) I turned it on, only to find that it is not bringing up an error now. Instead, it is making it to the XP screen where you select a profile to log on with, where it then proceeds to do a restart after a few seconds. There is no warning, it just restarts.

I dont want to buy a new CMOS battery if that is not the problem.

I also went into the CMOS settings, and it appears that the 3.3v, 5v and 12v strengths are all good, so I am assuming that its not a battery?

Any ideas please?

espresso

How old is the battery? They can be had for £1 or less, so may well be worth changing if it's a few years old.

smashed

Its 3years old I guess.
Yes, I was going to change it, but its strange how the error is no longer there, but it justs keeps restarting.

BillScarab

My cousin's PC kept crashing just before it got to the windows login screen.

Running chkdsk fixed it, try booting from the XP disc into the recovery console and running chkdsk /r

colin79666

replace the battery then enter the bios and set everything correctly as it will all be reset to factory defaults

smashed

Thanks, will try the XP disc boot tonight , and resort to battery change if that doesnt work

DrSmutt

dont use the recovery console just replace the battery. should take no more that 5 minutes.

Ive seen windows restart when the desktop appears and that was battery related.

navig8r

DrSmutt wrote:

dont use the recovery console just replace the battery. should take no more that 5 minutes.

Ive seen windows restart when the desktop appears and that was battery related.

Yes, definately replace it....at least then if it happens again you can eliminate it as one of the possible causes of the prob..If you don't replace it the prob may happen when you need the PC in a hurry..Sods law and all that!!

Dave

MadCowMan

I also went into the CMOS settings, and it appears that the 3.3v, 5v and 12v strengths are all good, so I am assuming that its not a battery?

you do know about assumption being the mother of all foul ups ?

those voltages you are referring to are what the bios is measuring from the PSU.

Try changing the CMOS battery and booting windows up into safe mode.

smashed

By coincidence.. without reading the above... this is what I did.

Grabbed the XP disc, went to put it in the drive... but it was stuck.
Had to grab a pin to eject the drive, and even then it was stuck.. but finally opened.
Put the disc in, turned PC back on, it asked me to pick a build to run from (the XP disc wasnt being used), so I chose safe mode.
Safe Mode came straight on, and said something about a driver or installation being completed succesfully.
Turned PC off and on, and its now fine.

So it appears it was soemthing to do with an installation gone wrong, tho nothing was meant to be being installed :S

Thanks everybody