Win Xp Error Message

[Mr Morse]

I have a 3 year old Tosh laptop running Win XP and get the following error message when booting:

****Bad check sum (CMOS)****

Check system then press F1 key

When I press F1 it goes into some sort of setup/options page, I press escape to get out and then the machine goes into a check disc mode before booting up normally.

Any ideas?

[MrADeveci]

It could be your RAM is knackered .........

[Fidgits]

sounds like a hardware problem...

id guess at being the bios

Trying switching off, unplugging, leaving for 15 mins and booting again

[Mr Morse]

Seems to be running fine now it's all booted up - is there a check programme I should run to investigate this?

[Fidgits]

dunno, Bios is hardware.

You can access it by pressing F3 (or something - depends on Motherboard) at initial boot...

[Brettster]

proberly just just the bios Battery backup

some are a watch Battery type and some are rechargable

if it hasnt been used for a long time it may just need a recharge

[Mr Morse]

proberly just just the bios battery backup

some are a watch battery type and some are rechargable

if it hasnt been used for a long time it may just need a recharge

←

I reckon you are bang on there - the machine hasn't been used for a few weeks and the main Battery was dead

Cheers guys!

[Anees]

Just read this..

I've experienced this problem before with machines at work that have not been used for a while.

Its as Brettster says the CMOS Battery.

If you leave the laptop running for a while it may recharge it OR you may have to just buy another one. They are only a couple of quid and should be very easy to replace.

[MacRS200]

Have you added or removed any disk drives or other hardware cos the BIOS is the bit that checks all the system hardware before booting up. Check Sum Error usually means that something is missing that it thinks should be there when it checks.

After it has booted up, check the date and time if it is correct then the BIOS Battery is prob OK as that is where the date and time is stored.

[Mr Morse]

Time and date is wrong - does this mean I need a new BIOS Battery, or does it just need time to recharge?

[MacRS200]

Time and date is wrong - does this mean I need a new BIOS battery, or does it just need time to recharge?

←

The date will usually go back to something like 1970 so if it is that far out defo Battery. Leave it plugged in over night to charge up and see what happens, getting to the BIOS Battery could be a nightmare on a laptop

[jaylist]

I have a 3 year old Tosh laptop running Win XP and get the following error message when booting:

****Bad check sum (CMOS)****

Check system then press F1 key

When I press F1 it goes into some sort of setup/options page, I press escape to get out and then the machine goes into a check disc mode before booting up normally.

Any ideas?

←

If it was a normal pc i would reccomend to change the Battery, but that will cost quite abit with a laptop.

You can always try rebooting the firmware. IF you look on the website of you machine you should see some download files for firmware. Just follow the instructions to flash your firmware.

J

[norkep]

To prevent the Battery from becoming drained quickly when not in use, there is a cap near a chip called the RTC, this is the main BIOS CMOS controller, if the system has not been in use for a while, say a month or so, then the cap will drain rather than the Battery causing all CMOS and BIOS settings to be returned to factory default settings. If you leave your system on for approx 4 hours, this will cure all the problems but you will need to adjust the time on the CMOS, alot people recon that the BIOS Battery has a recharge option but not the case, it's the cap near the RTC that gives this impression. The BIOS Battery is a normal R3032 Battery that you would find in a watch. It's NOT a recharable Battery. To charge the cap, you need to leave the system ON, not just plugged in, due to the Power Management or in the term of the Techie world - ACPI is only active after a +5 V is received, while in standby mode - just plugged in, there is only a +3 V which only allows for a charge to the main Battery and memory via the ACPI - hence the Hibernate Mode (S3) in the BIOS

If you install any software that has a trail period on it on the system while in factory setting, as soon as you change the time forward to the correct settings, the trail software will stop working.