i have a amd athlon 2200
when i start it up it sometimes,says amd athlon 2400mhz,and screen goes blank,so i have to switch off at the mains and re boot pc then it goes down to amd athlon 1500 and i have to go into the bios settings and up the power back to 2200,this is happening everyday now,does anyone know why????

Somewhere on your motherboard is a battery (small, flat, silver, size of a coin). Try replacing it.

righto,:loopy: havent got a clue:loopy:

You'll have to open the PC up and look inside at the main circuit board that everything else is plugged into. You should be able to recognise the battery easily. You can buy the battery from some supermarkets and most camera shops.

What is the make of your PC? A ot of newer boards no longer have the battery. They use a capacitor instead.

Has the date and time also reset when you find the processor has changed? If not then it may not be the battery.

Originally posted by wysiwyg
Somewhere on your motherboard is a battery (small, flat, silver, size of a coin). Try replacing it.

You mean the CMOS battery - size of a pound coin, thickness of a five pee coin.

The BIOS info. is held in the CMOS.

It holds the time, date, etc.

:)

hi,my pc is just 2 years old,no the time and date havent changed,i am a bit scared of opening the case though to look for a battery type thing:)

I can quite understand your fears and think it is such a shame that you're passing up such a wonderfly opportunity for a great new experience to widen your knowledge.

All you need is a screwdriver, open the case and then come back to ask for more help. I've found everyone on here a wealth of invaluable support and I'm sure they'll help you with this one.

hi, i no what your saying thanks for that yeh ill be brave after all what damage can i do just opening the case?...................
famous last words:hihi:

Glad you agree. Just to augment my previous post, some years ago I bought an internal zip drive which I installed myself. Cant tell you how proud I was of myself; it was a remarkable achievement; I'm not particularly a handy andy sort of person.

Originally posted by bunnykins
hi,my pc is just 2 years old,no the time and date havent changed,i am a bit scared of opening the case though to look for a battery type thing:)

Yeah, just open the case, then you'll be presented with loads of cables, a few thick grey cables, and then behind all of those cables, you'll find a (most likely green board).

Then, have a hunt around - without touching the cicuitry - for a silver coin looking thing.

See where it says ''CMOS Battery?'' (http://www.cwp55plus.nl/computerhulp%20image/motherboard2.jpg)

HTH.

Hi Kent boy many thanks for that tip. Am I correct in thinking that it is important to avoid touching the circuitry if at all possible with bare hands because the skin oils can cause damage?

Originally posted by wendygs
Hi Kent boy many thanks for that tip. Am I correct in thinking that it is important to avoid touching the circuitry if at all possible with bare hands because the skin oils can cause damage?

Static discharge from a person will cause more damage to the inards of a PC, rather than skin oils (unlike halogen headlight bulbs):).

If the time and date are still ok, then I would think it's not a CMOS battery problem.

I have my machine overclocked and if I power it off incorrectly or reset it during the boot up it resets the clock speeds.

I would go to your hardware manufacturer's website and see if there are any BIOS upgrades. It's now quite a simple process and you can run the updates in Windows.

hello everyone i am working from the local library at the mo,i did what you all said i changed the battery,but the pc just wont work i have just dropped it off at my local repair shop,ill keep you posted with what they have to say..:(

Originally posted by bunnykins
hello everyone i am working from the local library at the mo,i did what you all said i changed the battery,but the pc just wont work i have just dropped it off at my local repair shop,ill keep you posted with what they have to say..:(

Hi bunnykins. You should be feeling so proud of yourself to have done so much. It's so scary when first confronted with the inside of a PC and not knowing what goes to where etc. You cant begin to imagine how sorry I am to hear your tale of woe. :(

At least you tried with the screwdriver :) and hopefully found the casing didnt have a bark worse than it's bite. Should have thought to mention you could have PMed JoelC; he's extremely handy in situations like this and would have been more than happy to help you out. I am very happy to recommend him for the next time. ;)

Hope they'll get your PC sorted out shortly.
Wendy

Originally posted by wendygs
Hi bunnykins. You should be feeling so proud of yourself to have done so much. It's so scary when first confronted with the inside of a PC and not knowing what goes to where etc. You cant begin to imagine how sorry I am to hear your tale of woe. :(

At least you tried with the screwdriver :) and hopefully found the casing didnt have a bark worse than it's bite. Should have thought to mention you could have PMed JoelC; he's extremely handy in situations like this and would have been more than happy to help you out. I am very happy to recommend him for the next time. ;)

Hope they'll get your PC sorted out shortly.
Wendy Yes keep us informed on what they did to it...

:)

hi, bad news its a right off!!
the motherboards no good,so scrapping it and having a new system,managed to save graphics card and dvd/cd recorders,everything else was all on board so no good,
to say im gutted is an understatement,,,
not to worry should have a new system next week,wont say what my hubby had to say,lol:cool:

So sorry to hear that although it doesnt come as a surprise after you said a new battery wouldnt work. Well looking on the bright side you'll be able to have a current spec which cant be bad unless what you had was brand spanking new. :)

I wonder if a BIOS flash would have fixed it?

Ask them if you can keep the old parts.

let us know what they say before you collect and we will see if they are being honest about the fault or trying to rob you.

It should be a pretty simple fault at worst the power supply may be suspect and i charge £15 fitted for one of those.

I could have tested the battery for you gratis or replaced it for £4 including the battery.

Nucad Computers And Design - custom built pc's and security systems. Remember ADVICE IS FREE

If you could tell us the make and model of your motherboard, we could find out if a BIOS upgrade could fix it.

The manufacturer usually lists the faults a BIOS upgrade cures.

Originally posted by bunnykins
hi, bad news its a right off!!
the motherboards no good,so scrapping it and having a new system,managed to save graphics card and dvd/cd recorders,everything else was all on board so no good,
to say im gutted is an understatement,,,
not to worry should have a new system next week,wont say what my hubby had to say,lol:cool:

Did he say "those bloody people from that forum - paying out for a new computer because of them?" :D

hi, just to say i have got a system sorted and i am having to upgrade the memory and hard drive then should be ok,i hope,
the sad thing is its put me off attempting anything to do with fixing my own pc again,:)

Originally posted by bunnykins
hi, just to say i have got a system sorted and i am having to upgrade the memory and hard drive then should be ok,i hope,
the sad thing is its put me off attempting anything to do with fixing my own pc again,:)

But having poor RAM and low-storage HDD would not have dis-allowed the computer to start - did they givr you any clues as to what they did to it?

:)

Originally posted by kentboy119
But having poor RAM and low-storage HDD would not have dis-allowed the computer to start - did they givr you any clues as to what they did to it?

:)

mmh yes at the very least you should ask them for an explanation of what happened. Cant see why it should put you off doing things for yourself in the future because from the sound of what you posted it wasnt right in the first place.

lol you didnt here what my hubby had to say,all you had to do was change the battery,
and you cost me £200+,think youd be put off when its put like that:heyhey:

but what did the guys who fixed it say was wrong?

I've encountered this one before, with 'mercury' socket A nforce 2 boards, they have a bios fault that accidently overclocks the chip and then reports a bios overclock fail.
Replacing the cmos battery will not solve the problem, it shouldn't cause a problem though, maybe the battery was not reinstalled correctly, this would cause the system not to boot at all.

Am I correct on the board type?

hi, i am not sure about the board,all i no is that i went into my pc to replace the battery and it wouldnt start up,
i took it to the bloke that sorts my pc and he said its bad news the pc a right off he has had to replace a lot of the parts as they were built on,
i bought the pc 2 years ago from bs computers at darnall,
he has replaced the processor,memory and bios,hes put my hard drives back in but they are shot getting warnings all time,used all my own bits to put back together,

If you've changed the motherboard then RAM and stuff has to be changed too usually to remain compatable. So a £50 motherboard turns into a £200 job when you also add the processor, fan, and stuff.

You shouldn't really have problems with a 2 yr old hard drive. If youv'e got a rewriter keep a regular backup of your "my documents" and make sure all your created files go in there.

also make a .pst file backup of your email contacts or address book and write down all your settings and keep in a safe place.

Should be written policy for every computer owner.

:mrgreen:

Sounds a bit far fetched to me, motherboard, memory, CPU and hard drives all simultaneously break? I've not managed to do that when being extremely careless on scrap machines.

i thought the same,not much i can do now though,just pay for the new parts to be put on and look for someone else in future to look after my pc,a lesson learned i think eh? :|

To be fair, I did say to check the BIOS the day before you took it to the computer shop.