B
BigJon
I never thought I'd see the day that I'd have to make a post on a
newsgroup to find an answer, but for once in my 9-year career as a
part-time self-employed PC Technician, I have to admit I'm stumped. So,
I thought I'd throw the problem out to all of the readers of this NG to
see if anyone has experienced this problem, or if they have any
suggestions. OK, here goes nothing:
I have a customer who bought a computer from me about a year ago. The
specs are as follows:
AMD Sempron 3100+ (Socket 754)
PC-Chips M871G micro-ATX Motherboard
512MB Kingston PC3200 DDR Memory
300-Watt Power Supply
Western Digital 250GB Serial ATA HD
Western Digital 250GB IDE HD
Mitsumi 3½" Floppy
Sony 16X DVD-ROM
Sony 16X DVD±RW
Video, Ethernet, and Audio are all on-board.
The problem is this: The CMOS on the motherboard keeps resetting itself
randomly. There is no rhyme or reason as to when it will happen. It
may work for one day and not reset, it could work for over a week and
not reset. Initially, there was an ASUS motherboard in the system, and
it would usually hold its settings, but the CMOS battery would go dead
in just a few months. I swapped the ASUS board for the PC-Chips. This
is when the random CMOS resets started happening. I reported the
problem to my vendor and their tech told me the board was bad, so he did
a like-for-like exchange. This was back in January. Then, as my lack
of luck would have it, my customer called me yesterday WITH THE EXACT
SAME PROBLEM, YET AGAIN. Now, I have trouble believing that 3 boards in
a row could be defective. My logic leads me to think it's either
something wrong with the CPU, or the power supply. The weird thing is,
the computer runs fine when you turn it on and boot into Windows XP. No
lock-ups, no weird behavior, nothing...solid as a rock. But, if you
shut it down, that's where the game of Russian-Roulette with the CMOS
begins. It may reset, it may not...the only way to tell is to see if it
will actually boot up when you try to turn it on the next day. (When
the CMOS resets, it removes the SATA HD as the primary boot device, and
so it just freezes up after the POST screen)
Does ANYONE have a clue as to what is causing this? My vendor thinks
that my power supply theory is probably correct, but before I go
swapping more things out, I would like to know if my logic is sound, or
if I'm losing my mind.
Thanks in advance to anyone with some insight on this frustrating issue!
Jon
newsgroup to find an answer, but for once in my 9-year career as a
part-time self-employed PC Technician, I have to admit I'm stumped. So,
I thought I'd throw the problem out to all of the readers of this NG to
see if anyone has experienced this problem, or if they have any
suggestions. OK, here goes nothing:
I have a customer who bought a computer from me about a year ago. The
specs are as follows:
AMD Sempron 3100+ (Socket 754)
PC-Chips M871G micro-ATX Motherboard
512MB Kingston PC3200 DDR Memory
300-Watt Power Supply
Western Digital 250GB Serial ATA HD
Western Digital 250GB IDE HD
Mitsumi 3½" Floppy
Sony 16X DVD-ROM
Sony 16X DVD±RW
Video, Ethernet, and Audio are all on-board.
The problem is this: The CMOS on the motherboard keeps resetting itself
randomly. There is no rhyme or reason as to when it will happen. It
may work for one day and not reset, it could work for over a week and
not reset. Initially, there was an ASUS motherboard in the system, and
it would usually hold its settings, but the CMOS battery would go dead
in just a few months. I swapped the ASUS board for the PC-Chips. This
is when the random CMOS resets started happening. I reported the
problem to my vendor and their tech told me the board was bad, so he did
a like-for-like exchange. This was back in January. Then, as my lack
of luck would have it, my customer called me yesterday WITH THE EXACT
SAME PROBLEM, YET AGAIN. Now, I have trouble believing that 3 boards in
a row could be defective. My logic leads me to think it's either
something wrong with the CPU, or the power supply. The weird thing is,
the computer runs fine when you turn it on and boot into Windows XP. No
lock-ups, no weird behavior, nothing...solid as a rock. But, if you
shut it down, that's where the game of Russian-Roulette with the CMOS
begins. It may reset, it may not...the only way to tell is to see if it
will actually boot up when you try to turn it on the next day. (When
the CMOS resets, it removes the SATA HD as the primary boot device, and
so it just freezes up after the POST screen)
Does ANYONE have a clue as to what is causing this? My vendor thinks
that my power supply theory is probably correct, but before I go
swapping more things out, I would like to know if my logic is sound, or
if I'm losing my mind.
Thanks in advance to anyone with some insight on this frustrating issue!
Jon
