BIOS keeps resetting on Gigabyte mobo

[Ken90630]

Hey, All,

Two years ago I replaced the mobo, CPU and RAM in a friend's PC. All has been fine until yesterday. The mobo is a Gigabyte GA-B85-HD3 (Socket H3). The CPU is an Intel I5 (LGA 1150, Haswell core).

Each time the PC is powered down for any length of time and started back up, a message comes up during boot-up saying, "BIOS has been reset." There are then 3 options to choose from re how to proceed. I can go ahead and boot into Windows, but of course the date and clock are all out of whack (showing December 2012, etc.).

I don't get the BIOS reset message if I just do a restart. It's only if I power down for a few minutes or overnight and then power up. I've Googled the problem, but there doesn't seem to be anyone else having this problem.

My first thought is the battery on the mobo, but this board is only two years old and I've never seen a mobo battery go bad that soon.

Any ideas, anyone?

 

[UsandThem]

My first guess would be a dead battery.

Although they typically last longer than two years, maybe the supplier sold a bad batch of them to Gigabyte. Maybe the motherboard sat in a warehouse a long time before you received it. Maybe it was exposed to extremely hot or cold tempatures at some point.

Batteries all die at some point. Hopefully it's just that, and can be fixed with a new $4.00 battery.

 

[vailr]

There could simply be corrosion where the battery makes electrical contact.
Clean with liquid contact cleaner or a dry pencil eraser.
Try discharging the PSU's capacitor, by turning the (back of case) PSU rocker switch off, then press and hold the front of case power switch for several seconds. That procedure should always be the first thing to do when troubleshooting errors, connecting a PS/2 keyboard or mouse, LAN port troubleshooting, etc.

 

[Ketchup]

Have you ever done a hard BIOS reset on the board? Just try it once, reset the settings to what you want, then test.

If that doesn't work, try a new battery. They're cheap.

If that doesn't work, time to get more in depth. You may want to use Gigabyte's utility to flash the BIOS, even if it's the same one that's on it.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I posted my response in the OTHER copy of this thread. Try to keep thread in one place, please.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2469767

 

[Ken90630]

Thanks, everyone. As you guys thought, the problem appears to have been a dead battery. I realize now that I made a mistake in my original posting: I should have said that every time I unplug the PC and then boot it back up, I would get the "BIOS has been reset" message. I wasn't getting the reset message if I just powered down and left the PC plugged in. I hadn't narrowed it down that far yet when I did my posting, but I figured it out soon after.

Anywho, yeah, dead battery. It's kind of a cheapo, I guess -- the brand name on it is one I've never heard of before, and I'm not thrilled that it died after only 2-3 years (that's including the time it took to go from the factory to my hands in 2014). I replaced it with a Duracell CR2032, reset the BIOS, powered down and unplugged the PC, let it sit for five minutes, then powered it up. I've done that procedure twice and everything seems to be fine. I did have to adjust the date and time and change two or three other settings in the BIOS, but that was fairly easy.

Thanks, all, for the feedback. I appreciate it. :thumbsup:

 

[Ken90630]

Will do, Larry. Thanks.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Thanks, everyone. As you guys thought, the problem appears to have been a dead battery. I realize now that I made a mistake in my original posting: I should have said that every time I unplug the PC and then boot it back up, I would get the "BIOS has been reset" message. I wasn't getting the reset message if I just powered down and left the PC plugged in. I hadn't narrowed it down that far yet when I did my posting, but I figured it out soon after.

Glad you got it sorted, and thanks for clarifying that. In that case, I wouldn't worry about your PSU, it appears that it is operating fine, at least in this particular instance.

I've had "new" motherboards with bad, or nearly-bad batteries before. It happens.