BIOS batt issue? Pc won’t boot - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: eti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2022, 07:30:36 am
content: I have an Asus Z97-P Motherboard, and over the last few weeks the Ethernet has been flaky… Apparently there are various solutions and things to turn off in Windows for “Realtek” gigabit adapters… None of these worked…I have tried all kinds of trouble shooting tonight, resetting drivers et cetera et cetera… Reset the BIOS, re-flash the BIOS,… The motherboard is now seven years old, and the BIOS battery (out of circuit) measures 3V… Should I order a new battery?When I reset the BIOS, I now get a black screen with a solid hyphen “-“ near the top left and nothing else… Frustrating as this is my only PC.What I am asking is can a 3V measuring BIOS battery still be problematic? Thank you

author: Ranayna
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2022, 09:28:12 am
content: Well, it can't hurt to replace the battery. But why order? They should be available anywhere. I can get them in the supermarket here.But 3V unloaded should be fine.One mainboard i used, an AsRock X99 board, showed similar behaviour, showing just a blinking cursor.A proper power cycle always fixed that though, and since i usually turn off the power to my PC when it is not in use with a switched powerstrip, i did not investigate that issue further.

author: eti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2022, 09:33:07 am
content: Quote from: Ranayna on July 01, 2022, 09:28:12 am“Anywhere” for me is a a minimum of four miles away and I don’t drive. Thank goodness for Amazon Prime same day! Thanks for the help mate.

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2022, 12:51:44 pm
content: If the battery is a problem the BIOS should show a message on boot, to the effect that the setup is lost and press F1 to continue.Where it might be a problem (and resetting the BIOS replicates this, or vices versa depending on viewpoint) is with your boot device. AIR, Windows pre-8 didn't understand BIOS notification of SATA drives. There is a hotfix to sort that out, but another common way to deal with it was to tell the BIOS to report SATA drives as IDE, thus fooling Windows into thinking it knows about the drive. The effect of getting this wrong (that is, having the BIOS say 'SATA' when the hotfix hasn't been applied) is a failed boot, which could be the dash you're seeing in the top left of the screen.So, knowing that, a failed battery or BIOS reset could result in the BIOS defaulting to report SATA drives as SATA drives, causing a Windows boot failure.From your symptoms, I'd hazard a guess that your Windows version is 7 or earlier and that the BIOS battery is OK. Your network problems might be down to the cable connector.

author: eti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2022, 10:46:33 pm
content: This piece of junk motherboard has always had sporadic issues, from hanging on SATA and having to remove one drive, reboot, let it boot into the OS, then shutdown and replug etc, to it now having a NIC which keeps resetting itself over and over and over... ugh! I put a new BIOS battery in, and it fixed the static "-" hyphen... for a while... and now it's playing games again.

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2022, 10:54:21 pm
content: If it fixed it for a while but then reverted, that suggests a bad connection. Either on the motherboard or in the wiring. On such an old board it would probably be worth removing the processor heatsink and putting new compound on - sometimes that dries out badly, particularly if it wasn't applied very well in the first place. I'd consider removing and reseating anything that can be removed and reseated time well spent. And if it's still a dodgy network I'd replace the cable to prove it isn't that.

author: eti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2022, 11:17:20 pm
content: Quote from: dunkemhigh on July 01, 2022, 10:54:21 pmThe CPU was only upgraded/re-greased 3 mths ago... and I added a little contact cleaner to the ethernet plug... and it remains an issue.Yeah, you're right regarding re-seating the wiring. Issue is I have a a livestream with 17M people watching every night, so downtime is not something I relish.

author: antenna
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2022, 11:31:47 pm
content: The computer I have started out with the Asus X99-A and it had boot problems and random stuff similar to your issue go wrong with it since it was new. About 7 years later, it suddenly got progressively worse and I realized there was a cold solder joint under the chipset. Trashed that board trying to reflow it with the wrong flux and had a heck of a time finding a replacement that was compatible with my processor (i7-5960x). My advice, make sure boards with your CPU socket aren't going extinct before you realize you need a new one!

author: Ranayna
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 02, 2022, 08:58:46 am
content: Yeah, at this point i would look into replacing the board. Or even replacing the whole thing, to be honest.Getting an new computer would at least minimize your downtime.Last question: Did you already try to re-flash the BIOS/UEFI? Maybe something is borked there.

author: eti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 02, 2022, 07:46:08 pm
content: Quote from: Ranayna on July 02, 2022, 08:58:46 amBought a TP-LINK USB 3 to Gigabit adapter, all is well with the world. £9.99 well spent.

author: BeBuLamar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2022, 06:18:03 pm
content: I have an ASROCK motherboard (in fact 5 of them) that for some reason it goes to the BIOS set up program it uses a display mode that many modern monitor can't display. I have to have an old monitor just to set up the BIOS.

author: onsenwombat
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 28, 2022, 01:57:26 am
content: The board power supply/supplies are yielding?