Silicon Jesus (or The Healing Powers of the CR2032)
I had a problem at a LAN party this winter, and it just now occurred to me to talk to you guys about it. You might like this - and if anyone can give me insight as to what went down, I'd love it.:)
Leading up to the LAN party, my computer was becoming more and more finicky. Upon starting (and only randomly, other times it worked alright), it would not post - nor would it give a beep code. In fact, upon starting, the ONLY thing it did was power all the normal LEDs and spin up all the drives and fans.
An interesting aside was that on any startup AFTER a failed startup, the bios would return a checksum error.
Naturally, it failed completely at the LAN. No more was it random failures, but this time CONSISTENT failures.
I did that nice trick you always do to diagnose stuff like this - tried ONLY the core components, one stick of RAM at a time, etc. No luck - every setup (every stick of RAM, onboard and other video, onboard or no sound, even a spare CPU, but that wouldn't be the issue) failed. The only things that didn't get changed out were the motherboard and PSU.
Because I REALLY didn't want to order a motherboard from Newegg (I was at a LAN party and UPS is way slower than the time we had left), I went and bought a power supply on the fly. Problem solved!
...at least, for another week.
Lo and behold, the problem started rocking me again sometime in early January.
Now, generally when you get a bios checksum error, it's because some bios data changed without meaning to and the ending- and beginning-sums didn't match, right? Maybe, like, the battery got removed and one of the sums reset to null, right? So just for the hell of it, and since I REALLY didn't want accept the fact that it was CLEARLY the motherboard, I fooled myself into buying a replacement CR2032 battery.
It's March. I haven't had the problem again.
What the hell? No WAY did the motherboard battery cause this huge problem. Why did replacing it fix everything? Did I inadvertently heal a transistor? Am I silicon jesus?
Leading up to the LAN party, my computer was becoming more and more finicky. Upon starting (and only randomly, other times it worked alright), it would not post - nor would it give a beep code. In fact, upon starting, the ONLY thing it did was power all the normal LEDs and spin up all the drives and fans.
An interesting aside was that on any startup AFTER a failed startup, the bios would return a checksum error.
Naturally, it failed completely at the LAN. No more was it random failures, but this time CONSISTENT failures.
I did that nice trick you always do to diagnose stuff like this - tried ONLY the core components, one stick of RAM at a time, etc. No luck - every setup (every stick of RAM, onboard and other video, onboard or no sound, even a spare CPU, but that wouldn't be the issue) failed. The only things that didn't get changed out were the motherboard and PSU.
Because I REALLY didn't want to order a motherboard from Newegg (I was at a LAN party and UPS is way slower than the time we had left), I went and bought a power supply on the fly. Problem solved!
...at least, for another week.
Lo and behold, the problem started rocking me again sometime in early January.
Now, generally when you get a bios checksum error, it's because some bios data changed without meaning to and the ending- and beginning-sums didn't match, right? Maybe, like, the battery got removed and one of the sums reset to null, right? So just for the hell of it, and since I REALLY didn't want accept the fact that it was CLEARLY the motherboard, I fooled myself into buying a replacement CR2032 battery.
It's March. I haven't had the problem again.
What the hell? No WAY did the motherboard battery cause this huge problem. Why did replacing it fix everything? Did I inadvertently heal a transistor? Am I silicon jesus?
0
Comments
Friend of mine had a similar problem where the system was just randomly shutting off after a few minutes of use. He didn't replace the battery, but resetting the BIOS, removing the battery for 30 minutes, and reinserting it completely fixed his issue.
The BIOS is the brain stem of the computer. If it's not functioning, you're not breathing.
In THIS situation, I was indeed asked to reset to default settings on a successful boot (checksum error - reset to default?). So 'bad mobo battery' explains the checksum error - but what explains the UNsuccessful boot? If it were a bad battery, wouldn't the machine STILL boot, and just ask me to reset my bios?
Or am I wrong in thinking the mobo battery is just for when the power is off?