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Can't even get into CMOS


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#1
Fixer99

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When I turn on my computer, it won't do anything. I can't even get into CMOS. If I clear the BIOS with the jumper plug, and then start my computer back up, it will get to the CMOS. It recognizes my hard drive. But then it won't boot, not even in safe mode. Then after the failed boot, I have to clear the BIOS again for the computer to even get to the CMOS.

This all started when I installed a new nVidia System driver. (Can't remember which one) When I do get past the CMOS and start to boot in safe mode, it stops at a certain driver.

But why do I have to clear my BIOS every time in order to get the compute to do anything at all? It seems like something is happening to the BIOS after the failed boot.

I probably should try to get a boot disk and boot from my CD drive.
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#2
Fixer99

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I just tried booting from an XP Setup disk and that didn't work. I also hit F8 when the computer started booting and choose the option to boot from the last known good configuration, and that didn't work. I really dont' believe that my hard drive would have just stopped working just from installing a driver. The refurbished mobo only cost me $25 dollars. I think I'm just going to order another one. I'm wondering if I fried the BIOS chip somehow if I switched the power on when the the jumper plug to clear the BIOS was moved. Is there a way that a driver update can change the settings in the CMOS?
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#3
123Runner

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Fixer99 Welcome to geeks to go.

Lets see if we can figure this out.

When did this problem start?
Has this computer been working and then it failed? or did you replace the mobo and then a failure?

When you got into the bios, does it recognise the cd drive?
Did you change the boot sequense to boot from cd first?

Are you getting anything on the screen to show bootup?
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#4
Fixer99

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Here's exactly what happened. I replaced the mobo, everything was working fine. Then I put a video card in the AGP Controller slot, and hooked up the monitor to the video card instead of the built in video. My AGP Controller is disabled, and the computer was running real slow with the monitor hooked up to the video card. So I ran a program to see if I needed any driver updates, and I downloaded a system driver from nVidia. Then I rebooted my computer, and my monitor wouldn't do anything. So I thought maybe the driver update had changed something. So I hooked up my monitor to the built in video output. Still nothing. Then I took the video card back out and restarted the computer. There was still nothing. My monitor stated that it wasn't getting a signal. So I decided to just do something out of desperation, and cleared my BIOS by moving the jumper plug to the "disable" pins, and then back again. At some point I actually got the monitor to display those first lines that state that it recognizes the CPU? and the memory. I hit delete, and went into the CMOS. It recognizes my hard drive, and my floppy drive, and my CD Drive. My floppy drive doesn't seem to be working, so I used my CD Drive to boot from when I flashed the BIOS with a new update. So I know that my CD Drive was working as the 1st boot drive just recently.

Unless I clear the BIOS every single time before the computer is turned on, I get absolutely nothing on the screen, not even a blinking cursor.

When I try to boot in safe mode, it gets to these last two lines and then freezes up.
Windows\System32\Drivers\1394BUS.sys
Windows\System32\Drivers\Mup.sys

That 1394BUS.sys must have something to do with my ethernet card? I've had problems with that getting installed over and over again even though I already had my internet connection already installed.

I have a windows XP setup disk that I created to boot my mother's HP Laptop from when her computer crashed, but I couldn't get my desktop to boot from it.

Thank you for your help.
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#5
Fixer99

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I don't believe it! I got my computer to boot up! Here is how I did it:

Cleared the BIOS chip by moving the jumper plug to "disable" for 6 seconds then back
Started the computer
Hit "Del" to go into CMOS
Choose to load the "Fail Safe Defaults" in CMOS
Hit F10 and saved the changes to CMOS
Put my video card back in and hooked my monitor up to the video card instead of the built in monitor plug
Hit the reset switch
When the error msg came up that windows wasn't shut down properly I hit F8 for more options
I choose to boot up XP in SAFE MODE with a COMMAND PROMPT
It actually booted up!!! I thought my computer was dead. I left it alone to go watch the news and when I came back, there was a msg on the screen that Windows had detected and installed the new hardware. (My video card? Probably)
I'm running chkdsk on C: drive now to see if anything comes up. It seems like the built in video card wasn't sending a signal to the monitor. I don't understand why I got the screen to display output from the BIOS on the screen from the built in video card. Probably somebody could explain this, but I have no idea why. If I find out exactly what caused this problem I will post it later.
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#6
Fixer99

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As long as I clear the BIOS by moving the jumper plug on the motherboard, then my computer will boot up and run fine. So my hard drive is working. I ran chkdsk and there weren't even any bad sectors. None of my devices show any problems. The only thing I can think of is that there is something wrong with the motherboard, and the circuitry works when the BIOS is first used after it is cleared, but then after that it won't work. Well, I ordered a new "bare bones" computer just a couple days ago that will take the same RAM sticks that I have now (DDR) and the case, mobo, processor, cooler, and fan only cost me $109 from ascendtech. The mobo has two ATA-133 channels and 2x SATA ports support RAID 0, 1
So I can hook up all my old drives to the ATA sockets, and upgrade to SATA drives if I ever need or want to.

Ascend Tech Bare Bones Computer
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