Motherboard losing BIOS settings but not time and date?

[Speed]

Hello,

I've been having some problems with a computer and wondered if anyone had any similar experiences. Basically what's happens every few days the computer would reboot from windows or games saying there is no hard drive detected. My first thought was that the hard drive has or is going to fail but looking in BIOS all the settings seemed to have been changed back to defaults. This included the SATA RAID controllers, which turned from IDE mode that I set back to the default raid mode, which caused no hard drive to be detected.

Once the options have been replaced back to what I set everything is fine, I even ran Western Digitals diagnostic tool to be sure and the hard drive came up error free.

This is the screen that I get when the computer reboots and detects no hard drive:



I've also have been getting screens saying "overclocking failed" which again means options have been changed. There strangely is an option for overclocking and the default for this is auto, I always change it to standard which stops those kinds of messages appearing. Obviously this has been changed back to default by the problem. I don't overclock this rig at all.

All the settings seem to have changed, from cool 'n' quiet to onboard devices. The strange thing this is that the date and time are still set as normal, which is odd as if anything I would have thought that would have been the one thing certain to change.

Anyone had any experience with this sort of thing?

Motherboard is an Asus A8V Deluxe, I've tried upgrading the bios thinking that maybe the bios image is corrupted but this has not sorted the problem.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Mark
(Speed)

[Ferral]

Few things to try here, first off I would change the cmos battery on the motherboard (available anywhere that sells watch batteries or electronics parts, just take it with you to make sure you get the right one, should only cost a few quid) If it keeps losing its settings it could be that.

As for the hard disk not being detected, it usually happens when 2 devices on IDE 1 or 2 are both set to master or slave (either both master or both slave). Now taking that onboard it could suggest a faulty jumper on the back of the device possibly, not making the connection properly. On most devices if there isnt a jumper present it will default to setting the device to master. So what I will suggest for you to try is to grab an old motherboard or part that has jumpers on it and replace the jumper on the back of the hard disk and also replace the jumper on anything that is slaved to it with said spares from old parts.

Give both these a try and let us know how you get on. Go for the battery first as I would personally say that it will most likely be that if the cmos keeps losing its settings, ideally you should replace the cmos battery once a year.

BTW : Dont touch the new battery with you're fingers as it will lose its charge, pull the backing off and put it in using either a pair of tweezers or keeping it in part of the packing and fit it that way.

[Speed]

Few things to try here, first off I would change the cmos battery on the motherboard (available anywhere that sells watch batteries or electronics parts, just take it with you to make sure you get the right one, should only cost a few quid) If it keeps losing its settings it could be that.

As for the hard disk not being detected, it usually happens when 2 devices on IDE 1 or 2 are both set to master or slave (either both master or both slave). Now taking that onboard it could suggest a faulty jumper on the back of the device possibly, not making the connection properly. On most devices if there isnt a jumper present it will default to setting the device to master. So what I will suggest for you to try is to grab an old motherboard or part that has jumpers on it and replace the jumper on the back of the hard disk and also replace the jumper on anything that is slaved to it with said spares from old parts.

Give both these a try and let us know how you get on. Go for the battery first as I would personally say that it will most likely be that if the cmos keeps losing its settings, ideally you should replace the cmos battery once a year.

BTW : Dont touch the new battery with you're fingers as it will lose its charge, pull the backing off and put it in using either a pair of tweezers or keeping it in part of the packing and fit it that way.

Hi,

Firstly thank you for your reply!

With regards to the CMOS battery, I did think of that but surely if it's getting low the time and date would have gone as well.

As for the hard drive, as I've explained the drive is simply not being detected due to the problem of the settings being changed. It works fine normally, but once the settings reset to defaults it can't be detected. BTW there are no slave/master/cableselect jumpers on a normal SATA drive.

I'll look into the battery though, anyone experienced a low CMOS battery wiping the settings but not the time and date though?

Thanks

[funnelhead]

mmm dont know what ur problem is really, but its the kind of thing that happens to me if an overclock fails - after the hang / crash the bios seems to know that that particular speed failed and resets to defaults. Obviously this doent affct the time or date.

Sometimes this happens simply from a cold boot, but just going into the bios then saving and exiting puts eveything back the way it should for me.


This begs the question - how does the bios detect a failed speed / hard crash

Is this part of ur mobo faulty?

Perhaps someone else knows these things....

[Dingo]

PSU power spikes will have the effect of potentially upping the voltage to the cpu which would have the same effect as an overclock.

Are you using a good branded psu? and is it sufficient to run the rig you have currently (ie) most modern setups will require 400W plus psu's

The thread below should help you rule it out if you already have a top quality psu

http://forums.extremeoverclocking.co...d.php?t=137886

[Speed]

mmm dont know what ur problem is really, but its the kind of thing that happens to me if an overclock fails - after the hang / crash the bios seems to know that that particular speed failed and resets to defaults. Obviously this doent affct the time or date.

Sometimes this happens simply from a cold boot, but just going into the bios then saving and exiting puts eveything back the way it should for me.


This begs the question - how does the bios detect a failed speed / hard crash

Is this part of ur mobo faulty?

Perhaps someone else knows these things....

It's possible the motherboard is faulty. PS: Nice of you to finally reply to something I've done!

PSU power spikes will have the effect of potentially upping the voltage to the cpu which would have the same effect as an overclock.

Are you using a good branded psu? and is it sufficient to run the rig you have currently (ie) most modern setups will require 400W plus psu's

The thread below should help you rule it out if you already have a top quality psu

http://forums.extremeoverclocking.co...d.php?t=137886

Yes I have a quality power supply, Antec 430w True Power.

This problem actually has not happened again, but I'm sure it will in the future, it could also be related to the graphics card problems I was having but now seem to be fixed (thread: Here). It's also possible that reseating everything (from the battery to ram) sorted it though. As for the overclock error is simply down to the stupid motherboard settings. God knows why they have "Auto" overclock as a default setting. I set it to "Standard", but once the settings are changed it some times wants to overclock it.

I'm hoping to replace the motherboard with a NF4 model as I've had enough of the VIA chipset. The problem of course being cash, I'll need to get a PCI-E graphics card but if the problem has gone away for a couple of months I can save up while purchasing other "must have" upgrades .

Thanks everyone for your input.

[Speed]

Right well this happened again today, same thing, options I set were lost but the date and time were fine. I tried reseating everything including the battery, so that has not solved anything. The graphics problems have not happened again so I don't think they are related.

I'm going to e-mail Asus but if anyone has any suggests please feel free to let me know.


A rather late update: Just incase anyone get the same problems, it was in fact a faulty motherboard.