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It never did that before! I have the whole computer system on a power strip. After normal shut down, I switch the strip off. to use, I turn the power strip on, some lights blink on the computer and that's it. Then I manually press the button on the front of the computer and it winds up. Well, lately it's been starting as soon as I turn the power strip on. And at that point, a black screen comes up with a lot of stuff about it being Dell and such, but the last line reads "performing IDE....". after a while it comes up with more stuff and asks for either F1 or F2. F2 is for setup. So I check that and find the time is set to zero and the date is from Nov. 2003. I reset all that, but it doesn't stay. Also, it says something about a 3.5 diskette at startup. It appears as if all the setup stuff is wrong. How do I know what SHOULD be the right setups? And how do I get the time stamp to remain?
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sounds like your CMOS battery is going out. It's a flat battery on your motherboard inside your computer. It usually has a number on it, find a replacement at radio shack, some local dealer or online.
Replace that and see if your time sticks. If so then you'll be able to solve your other problems...Tr
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once you have your battery replaced, go into your BIOS and see what settings you may need to change.Comment
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BIOS settings.
I will replace the battery. Interesting on that. But, as for the BIOS, other than the time, how do I know what the correct settings should be? 3.5 floppy or 'C', or some other drive?Comment
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you probably want to press F1 to continue. If you press F2 then you can set your bios to:
- power up on button vs power up on power
- set your boot priority order, which I like to be floppy then cd then hard drive
TryComment
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BIOS settings...
I will do that next session.Comment
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it probably won't stick until you replace that battery.TryComment
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Battery issue...
Thanks, Troy! A new battery and all is well! I'd've never guessed it would have that kind of impact.Comment
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