Mobo loses config -> sign of trouble ahead?

[seismik]

A friend urgently called me over last night as his PC had died, his motherboard config went wonky so when he booted up he'd get 'ATAPI Invalid' errors and it wasn't recognizing his drives, CD or HDD. I tried getting into the BIOS unsuccessfully, it would just hang and never make it in. So we pulled out the manual and cleared the CMOS via the jumper, powered back up and all was good. I don't know what could have caused this problem in the first place? Is it a sign of more problems to come or maybe just some bad luck on his part? Never seen a situation like that (of course I've screwed up my CMOS settings many times before, but all as a result of my tinkering, never had a spontaneous change like that).

 

[NicColt]

just sounds like a dead battery....

 

[ScrapSilicon]

Originally posted by: NicColt
just sounds like a dead battery....

lmao..was thinking it as I read/scrolled his post

 

[seismik]

Two month old motherboard... battery could be dead but it does hold the config now, with the same battery. The config wasn't so much lost as just messed up.

 

[Buz2b]

Was his system overclocked? Or had he "tweaked" the memory settings at all?

 

[seismik]

No. No tweaks at all, all settings were defaults. Worked fine for two months and then wham! weird settings and he wasn't able to boot or anything. The guy would have no idea how to even get into his BIOS to begin with... not very PC literate.

 

[pspada]

Sometimes mobo's loose their minds if the system is reset or powered off at a particular point, or a number of times. I've seen it happen plenty of times, so he's likely ok.

 

[Buz2b]

Originally posted by: pspada
Sometimes mobo's loose their minds if the system is reset or powered off at a particular point, or a number of times. I've seen it happen plenty of times, so he's likely ok.

Agree, it could have even been a power surge of sorts or some other sort of power anomaly that reset things. In the long run, he is most likely fine.

 

[seismik]

That's what I was hoping to hear... thanks for the info guys.