Packard bell - Have you ever heard of this? Bios Battery

[lipsmoker]

So hey guys this is my first post here and i just want to know if anybody has heard of this

 

 

So a friend asked me to come over and fix his computer.

This computer is a pretty out-dated packard bell and has just had 4gb of ram put in by a store and it was working fine

 

He said it sometimes doesn't start up or run and sometimes it does when it doesn't it says CMOS battery low. it was beeping twice on boot which is a ram error? i think so i took out the 4gb and put in the old 512mb back in to eliminate that. it did the same thing. so i put the 4gb back in. The bios was picking up 1867mb of ram anyway so it was picking it up (ddr2)

 

I had a fiddle in the bios and couldn't find anything of any use to me so i decided to have a look at the battery. it seemed fine and don't worry i wore anti static gloves and grounded myself. I suggested a new bios battery to him and was moving the pc back to where it was and tried it one more time. it booted? right up. I asked him to log in and we noticed the keyboard and mouse wasn't plugged in so we plugged it in.. didn't work. that's weird. Reboot with it plugged in. Did it's problem again? damn must be a fluke. Sit looking at it for while. The only thing that was different when it booted was the Old PS/2 Mouse and keyboard wasn't in. took them out and... It booted! it still says Bios battery low but its jumps past it it's booting.. but the mouse and keyboard don't work if you plug them in at the login screen. The KEYBOARD works but only if you plug it in when it counts down from 20. when you click start windows normally. the mouse doesn't work at all.. i'm so confused how the mouse and keyboard could stop it from booting.

 

There's only a few things i can think of

 

The bios battery is that low it cannot power the PS/2 Part of the board on boot? - not sure if that even has anything to do with the power of that

That part of the board is burnt out but then why would the keyboard work if you plug it in at the Countdown to boot (run as safe more) (start normally etc) and it also works on bios if you plug it in at boot. BUT it wont get past the bios battery low. but you can use it to navigate through bios

 

I'm going to take over a USB mouse and Keyboard tomorrow and see if i can get that to work. I'm also going to get a new bios battery just incase.

 

Anyone heard of anything like this? sorry it's so long

[seedy21]

Hello Lipsmoker and Welcome to FPCH

 

Anyone heard of anything like this

 

Its going to sound strange but i have had machines that refused to start up with a keyboard and mouse, Removed them and it works fine intill it asks for a keyboard to be connected.

 

The bios battery is that low it cannot power the PS/2 Part of the board on boot?

Unlikily, BIOS battery is there to store the Time and Date for the machine. If you are having error messages about it running low its best if you can replace it

 

I would test it with the USB keyboard and mouse and let us know if it works :)

 

Regarding the RAM if the machine is'nt seeing all 4GB i would take it back to the computer store and get them to look at it or get your money back.

[lipsmoker]

Regarding the RAM if the machine is'nt seeing all 4GB i would take it back to the computer store and get them to look at it or get your money back.

 

Oops. I was suppose to say it's been upgraded with up to 2gb of ram. And picking up just under my bad.

I'm taking the usb and keyboard up tomorrow to test it

 

Thankyou very much

[seedy21]

Oops. I was suppose to say it's been upgraded with up to 2gb of ram. And picking up just under my bad

 

Thats fine. This is normal, As if the machine is using its on-board Graphics Card, This uses RAM.

 

Let us know how you get on with the USB keyboard and Mouse.

[lipsmoker]

Thats fine. This is normal, As if the machine is using its on-board Graphics Card, This uses RAM.

 

Let us know how you get on with the USB keyboard and Mouse.

 

 

Oh thankyou! always wondered why it doesn't pick up the full ram amount.

Going over there in an hour with this keyboard and mouse to see what happens. looked at a cmos battery and can get ahold of an exact replacement for £5.

 

I also just found out the bios is usually stored on a Flash memory chip on the motherboard I thought the bios was stored on the Bios battery turns out i wasn't even close haha that's just the time and date as you said.

[lipsmoker]

So i got there and plugged in the USB keyboard and mouse and tried to boot.

 

It locked up again and wouldn't boot. the keyboard worked through bios but wouldn't boot

Unplugged them and managed to get it to boot up. put the old ps/2 keyboard in at the countdown to launch windows (which is the only way it works) and put the password in and got the computer to install the keyboard and mouse.

 

Now it still wont boot with the usb's in. But it works fine if you leave them out. and plug them in at the login screen.

So there computer is atleast usable now. He's getting a new battery tomorrow to see how it goes.

[KenB]

Hi

 

Try going into the BIOS You are looking for "Integrated Peripherals"

Then "USB Controller" ......this should be Enabled.

 

Save and Exit ( usually F10 )

 

There are many variations on the BIOS settings so I cannot be any more specific.