pc help

Retroholic Joined: 23 Dec 2005 Posts: 3315

i cant get into my BIOS/CMOS or whatever it is

i have a Gigabyte GA-6VMM mother board that i cant get into the bios on it, it says at the start of the boot up:-

CMOS settings wrong

press F1 to run setup
press F2 to load default values and continue

if you press either it asks for a password you can type whatever you want (you have to do it three times) then it boots up as normal (except you have to set the date and time everytime) it wont reconize the RW in it says it has a floppy drive (if it does i don't no where??lol) it wont play videos proply,i have left the CMOS battery out for a few hours (no luck maybe leave for more than a few hours?) i have tried moving the jumper (didn't turn on is this the norm?)it did nothing, i have tried back door passwords no joy either, i bought a new motherboard which is the same as this off ebay and a 933mhz CPU 40gig HD and 512mb memory to sovle to probs in one hit, no joy the HD didnt work so i put the old HD in to see if that would work then it locked this mother board up like the 1st, i have found on the net you can short curcit the BIOS chip but i dont want to start poking bits of wires in random places without knowing where to put it first, i dont really want to take it in the shop as they will charge high heaven for it to be sorted and i dont want to really pay a bean to fix this problem, i can usually sort probs myself i have tried for a month or so now and its getting to be a right pain in the ass so any HELP will be greatfully recivied TA

Level 4 User Joined: 16 Jun 2005 Posts: 81

Yes, when you move the jumper on the board, it is normal that it does not power on with this model of motherboard as far as I remember. Make sure you disconnect power to the psu, then move jumper, then reconnect power to psu and power on and as far as I remember it doesn't boot, or even start the video card. After a few seconds (leave for a min just to be sure) then power off, remove power cord to psu and return jumper to normal position.

I take it you are having to enter the password 3 times because it gives you 3 chances to get it right and you are not getting the password right obviously. Well I am surprised that another board of the same model did not get around this problem, so I think it's safe to assume you have another problem going on. Sounds like either the device you are connecting (is it cdrom or hdd?) is faulty or else a pin is bent on the device, the socket on the board or else the ide cable you are using is faulty.

In such a situation you want to reduce as many factors to the problem as possible. So remove all disks and cdroms and cables to these. Remove all pci cards. Leave only video card installed. If there's an onboard video connector remove the video card from its slot if there is one. Reset the bios with the jumper as before and see if you can get into the bios setup. If so, add back in the other devices one by one and go from there.

"HTH" as they say. Smile

Retroholic Joined: 23 Dec 2005 Posts: 3315

i have done just that last night i left batt out, moved jumper, disconnected power and all devices, put it back together this morning an still the same prob, i have changed CPU and sdram and RW since it 1st started and have used different cables to

if you move jumper and push power not even the green power light doesnt come on is that norm?

Level 4 User Joined: 16 Jun 2005 Posts: 81

no, I wouldn't think so. You sure you're getting power from the PSU? Check that the PSU supports the board. That's a P4 board yeah? Reseat the atx connector from PSU to motherboard and the CPU 4 pin power connector. [edit: no, I see it is a P3 board so forget the separate 4 pin cpu power connector, it won't have one] Also, seeing as you have replaced the board in this double check that you have fitted the board in the chassis ok and that you haven't accidentally earthed the motherboard against something in the chassis or some part of the chassis.

Seeing as you have replaced the board you would have had to reconnect all the wires to the front power/reset and led connectors on the pinout on the board. Check the motherboard manual and check carefully that you have these connected the right way. Some seem to matter what way the polarity is.

But I think it's also likely you have a PSU problem or power from PSU to mboard or accidentally earthing mboard by touching some part of it off the chassis. It can look seated ok but maybe there is some part of it not seated quite right.

Retroholic Joined: 23 Dec 2005 Posts: 3315

no its a p3 board

that one, what do you mean by disconecting the CPU? disconnect the power cord,tak out the processor? then move the jumper then put the processor back, the power cord in then power button on then leave for a min or two, then put it all back?what abot the CMOS battery? take it out?

sorry i aint a pc pro lol

Level 4 User Joined: 16 Jun 2005 Posts: 81

no worries, you're fine. Hopefully there's just something you've forgotten to connect after replacing the board.

When you are moving the jumper, yeah I am saying to take the power cord out of the back of the psu or remove plug from mains or switch off mains socket while leaving plugged into wall socket is even better as it will keep the unit earthed while you work.

Forget about the separate 4pin power connector to the motherboard that I mentioned, that's not on Pentium 3 boards or PSUs designed for them.

So to sum up, reseat the 20-pin power connector from the PSU to the motherboard. You may just not have pushed this home far enough. You should feel it click into place solidly. Make sure you don't apply too much pressure to crack the motherboard though!

Check the motherboard manual for the pinouts from the motherboard to the wires that go to the power and reset and power and hdd access leds on the front of your computer are connected the right way.

Check that when you switch on the power at the wall socket to your PC again that the fan in the PSU may spin a couple of revolutions for a split second. At least then you know the PSU is probably fine.

Retroholic Joined: 23 Dec 2005 Posts: 3315

every thing is connected fine and together as it should be

ive tried shorting the bios chip to,

Level 4 User Joined: 16 Jun 2005 Posts: 81

Well I think you should go over everything and double check everything you've done at each stage. You had to move the CPU to the new board of course too, and if that's not seated right you will get no power on and symptoms that look like the board is getting no power. If you didn't have the heatsink on or on properly maybe you fried the CPU and you will get the same symptom.

Does the fan in the PSU spin momentarily when you reconnect power to it?

Unless the new board you got is faulty then there's something you have missed along the way.

Reseat the CPU, check for any bent pins, check no cracks in it and the heatsink is on properly. Reseat the memory dimms. Go over everything I mentioned in the previous post again. You don't have to be a pc-novice to miss something along the way! Smile

Retroholic Joined: 23 Dec 2005 Posts: 3315

ok thanks i will report back on what happends

Level 4 User Joined: 16 Jun 2005 Posts: 81

Yeah, good man do that. Always good to have it documented what the problem was in the end!

Retroholic Joined: 23 Dec 2005 Posts: 3315

done all that, tried a mother board i have left the batt out and jumper moved for a few days, still the same left all cards and devices off and still no luck now saying

CMOS settings wrong
CMOS/GPNV checksum bad

press F1 to run setup
press F2 to load default values and continue

askin for password as before three times then boots up (well slow)

should i give up and take it in the shop as it is annoying as now

Level 10 User Joined: 22 Mar 2005 Posts: 621

Is this by any chance a Packard Bell PC?

Retroholic Joined: 23 Dec 2005 Posts: 3315

no not a packup bell PC but 1 i have built from many parts over the last year without noing much about pc's i have upgraded and messed around many times but this is the only 1 thing that has fooked up

Level 10 User Joined: 22 Mar 2005 Posts: 621

Would you be confident enough (or could you get help) to flash the bios?

Retroholic Joined: 23 Dec 2005 Posts: 3315

yea but the password is locked

and it is advised not to run the BIOS flash through windows DOS pop up thingy but in proper DOS

Level 4 User Joined: 16 Jun 2005 Posts: 81

bbracer16valver";p="82777 wrote:

done all that, tried a mother board i have left the batt out and jumper moved for a few days, still the same left all cards and devices off and still no luck now saying

CMOS settings wrong
CMOS/GPNV checksum bad

press F1 to run setup
press F2 to load default values and continue

askin for password as before three times then boots up (well slow)

should i give up and take it in the shop as it is annoying as now

What? You call going from getting no power up at all, no display, nothing at all from the machine to getting a display and prompt to go into bios setup having no luck?? Shocked

When you install a new CPU in a board for the first time it will say checksum is bad and to press some key to load default values. This is as a safeguard to load the most compatible settings to give the new hardware the best chance to work together for the first time and you can tweak it later.

You don't flash the bios in windows, you make a bootable floppy disk and copy the flashing program and flash rom file to the floppy. You then boot up with the floppy, and will be in DOS from where you run the flash program by typing the name of the file with .exe or .com suffix and ususally you are then asked to provide the name of the rom file which you have also copied to the floppy. There's a good chance that doing this will also clear the password that's locking you out of the bios configuration/setup options.

If it doesn't, check your motherboard manual to see whether there's a separate jumper for specifically clearing the bios password. If there isn't, then do the bios clearing with the relevant jumper and make sure you are doing it in the way I described before. I suspect you may not be doing this properly.

By the way, what did you mean by this when you said earlier:

Quote:

ive tried shorting the bios chip to