BIOS wont stay saved?! Turn on carputer...always the default bios setup...HELP!?!

Cadillac_LoungN · 07-17-2003, 02:00 AM

Hey all,
more adventures through carputer land. This time, it involves an ASUS A7V-266C motherboard. My friend got my on ASUS a while ago, but since I have found that I am disgusted with them. I already had to send the board back for replacemnt, which they sent me back a board that has white "VOID" lightly imprinted over the CMOS battery and the EPROM aswell. This one however, will not keep my bios settings. I'm off an inverter, but even if I was on DC-DC I wouldn't want ANY current going to the carputer when I'm not wanting to hear tunes, for fear of battery draininge. I cant exactly figure this out, I've tried everything. Re-seting the CMOS battery, clearing the CMOS and starting over (GOD HOW MANY TIMES I HAVE DONE THIS) tried different batteries. Nothing. The computer just starts up and goes to the inital bios setup screen, as if you had added a new CPU or something. It actually saved the bios once last night, re packed everything up the way I like it, was ready to go cruize, and what do you know...default bios setup screen! It seemed to be fine if there was no power going to it for like 5 seconds or so, any more than that and when I restarted next time, you know that pretty blue screen I'd get!
Any ideas on this would be greatly appreciated. I'm not even doing "PWR ON AFTER AC LOSS" anymore, for fear that maybe that would lead to these damn bioses not saving.

osirisdon · 07-17-2003, 03:10 AM

You replaced your CMOS battery with the proper replacement? If so, maybe your eeprom or flash mem is bad.

Moose · 07-17-2003, 03:17 AM

Holy cow, looks like you have checked it all out thoroughly, only thing I could think up would be to confirm that all the jumpers are sitting correctly. Other then that, I would say you have to deal with another crappy RMA. Good luck.

TruckinMP3 · 07-17-2003, 07:25 AM

Send it back again.... you did your part and checked what the rest of us would check.

tejesh83 · 07-17-2003, 10:36 AM

Some motherboards have a clear cmos jumper. Did you leave this shorted by accident? Try the opposite of whatever it is now. In fact, I believe this MB has a typo in the manual. It should say: "To clear, place a jumper on it, in normal operation DON'T place a jumper on it".

If that fails:
Check the battery contacts with a meter on the contacts of the underside of the board to make sure the proper voltage is reaching. There could be some corrosion on the contacts or the contacts may have worn out and have a loose contact on the battery.

If that fails:
Try flashing the bios with the latest bios, or if this is the latest, reflash it with the same.

If that fails:
Try here: http://www.a7vtroubleshooting.com/

gizmomkr · 07-17-2003, 11:02 AM

My vote says the board is toast - I'd send it back.

Strange - I have always had good luck with ASUS boards.

TruckinMP3 · 07-17-2003, 11:25 AM

"clear cmos jumper" this will generally prevent turning the PC on.... I doubt this is what you are finding

tejesh83 · 07-17-2003, 02:26 PM

TruckinMP3: The clear cmos jumper does not neccessarily disable turning on the PC. In fact, I would think it just creates an open circuit b/w the battery and whatever it's powering (eeprom?). But I guess implementation will vary. My last 3 motherboards, MSI, IWill, and ASUS, all powered on with this this jumper set to clear. I made use of that features numerous times when overclocking too far.

Cadillac:
If you do some more research on http://www.a7vtroubleshooting.com/, you will find that you are not the only one experiencing this problem. In fact, there is a note on the home page about this very issue. I think their forums would be a better place to ask this question.