Resetting BIOS?

[Kenny]

Does it matter whether the m/b battery's in or out and why?

 

[Jon Danniken]

Does it matter whether the m/b battery's in or out and why?

No. You can reset the BIOS by taking out the battery for a few moments, but
it is much easier to just leave it in and use the reset jumper.

Jon

 

[Kenny]

Thanks, I got a long winded call from a friend who couldn't get into the
bios at all, he was using the right key for his PC. He took the battery out
but shorted the points as well. Now PC won't start at all, no beeps,
nothing but fans running

 

[Face]

you're not supposed to short the points and turn the machine on...

 

[kony]

Thanks, I got a long winded call from a friend who couldn't get into the
bios at all, he was using the right key for his PC. He took the battery out
but shorted the points as well. Now PC won't start at all, no beeps,
nothing but fans running

Did he unplug it from AC first? That is necessary,
sometimes.

"Shorted the points" is a bit ambiguous, if there is any
doubt as to whether he'd done it correctly, have him confirm
the correct jumper for clear-CMOS in the motherboard manual,
and retry it (again with AC disconnected).

You mention no history of the system nor the system parts,
but if it had previously been running fine and had this
sudden problem, it would likely be more than a bios glitch,
for example a failing board or power supply is possible.

 

[Kenny]

It all became a bit clearer when I saw PC this morning. No life except for
fans and CD LED blinking at power on. Since I knew he had been at CMOS I
tried it, correct solder points, no difference.
Asus K7M m/b, Athlon 600MHz, ATI 8MB AGP card, 384MB PC100 and 18GB WD
drive. He had been moving them to a new flashier case, don't ask me why!
From here on I was acting on hunches and "nothing to lose anyway".
First thing checked PSU outputs with multimeter, seemed OK.
CMOS chip was removable so I carefully took it out and shorted all the pins
together, put it back. Should add here that I am a trained TV & video
engineer.
Pleased to see RAM count etc. and could enter BIOS.
At that point used Ultimate Boot CD to run diagnostics on RAM and HDD, all
seemed OK. Then tried to boot to Windows. It resumed XP Setup until
"installing devices" then failed with "driver installer" type messages then
BSOD.
I had earlier checked connections but looked again. HDD jumper was set to
Master but I vaguely remembered something about older WD drives should
actually have NO jumpers if it was a single drive PC.
Re-formatted and installed XP again and it's running happily now.
How it worked before I don't know but thought I'd pass it on, it may help
someone.

 

[old jon]

It all became a bit clearer when I saw PC this morning. No life except
for fans and CD LED blinking at power on. Since I knew he had been at
CMOS I tried it, correct solder points, no difference.

Re-formatted and installed XP again and it's running happily now.
How it worked before I don't know but thought I'd pass it on, it may help
someone.
Well done Kenny.

 

[Pen]

You are correct. WD drives have a *single* setting in addition to master and
slave.