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Odd PC behaviour


Molten

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OK I am freaking out a bit here.

This morning All seemed fine. Then I logged out and powered my PC down as I normally would.

About an hour later I turned on PC and it just would not boot up.

I have not changed anything since last use. All I did was check this forum, made a reply to a post and to the gallery. Checked my emails and that was it.

I spent the best part of the morning trying to work out what was wrong. I was getting to the point where I thought a re'install of OS was my only option as my PC could not find an OS that it could load on my HD.

In the end I found the error. My OS is on a raid set up. Looking through the Bios I noticed that in storage config SATA was configured for just IDE and not set as RAID as it should be. I set it to raid restarted system and all was well again.

My question is how the F***k is that possible ???

I haven't even looked in my bios setting in months let alone change anything. It's got me worried.

No one else has access to this particular PC. No one can even turn it on unless they know what I know. I can't figure out a rational explaination.

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I don't play with RAID, nor do I know anything about it, but, in the past I've had boot issues with my own (self-build) computer similar to yours. I turn my computer and it simply hangs on the BIOS screen, then I restart it and it flickers from the BIOS screen to another one saying (in very, very poor english) something along the lines of "Error! Overclocking setup failed, press F1 to return to defaults or F2 to enter setup". Funny thing about that is, I don't overclock anything. I haven't touched my BIOS setup in years, the only time that I've done anything in it was when I first installed the motherboard.

Weird things can happen, but, the way that I've dealt with the overclocking reset problems is just by ignoring it. I've had my non-existent overclocking settings fail twice on me and I'm sure that it'll happen again, but, nothing seems to be wrong with my computer whenever this happens. I wouldn't worry about it.

As far as a rational explanation goes, the best that I can think of is something funky with your battery. Similar to my issue, something fucked up in the BIOS configuration but not the entire BIOS config was reset to default. If you had a power surge when your computer was off then it's possible that your power strip/surge protector (whatever you want to call it) didn't completely stop all current and something spiked into your computer and did something weird. I always leave my computer on, so, the only times that I have to turn it on is whenever I lose power. I'm not an electrician nor am I an absolute expert with computers, but, that's the most rational explanation that I could think of.

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I've had an OC'd system for a while but nothing has ever reset like that before, unless the computer failed to POST and forced itself to reset. I make reference to OC'ing rather than a RAID setup because I have never bothered with RAID, personally. Penguin's idea about the BIOS battery makes sense, you will lose your settings if your battery starts to die on your mobo. However, it is strange for the battery to only act up once like that. If it does it repeatedly you may want to check your battery (although they should last for years). I suppose a power spike could cause it, as Penguin mentioned, although a spike has never reset my BIOS before, and I've had a few close calls before (hence why I decided to get a surge protector).

Did any other settings change? Did your BIOS system time change at all? That is another sign of a dead battery. if your BIOS resets the time upon every boot, then the battery is no good, most likely.

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"something along the lines of "Error! Overclocking setup failed, press F1 to return to defaults or F2 to enter setup".

That, ^^ is exactly what happened ! The error about overclocking and pressing F2 to set defaults. The main issue was though that even after doing that and resetting no OS could be found on my HD.

The battery Idea makes a lot of sense and think I will take it as a warning and replace. The reason no OS could be found I guess is cause the bios sets up the raid as well.

I am scrapping my raid set up anyway soon as I never really saw any noticible benefit in performance.

So glad this is an issue others have come accross. I was starting to think all sorts of paranoid reasons even to the point where I might have picked up some virus or malware :p.

Icon' your comment about power surge protecter has just reminded me. I have one in a box somewhere but when I moved house I never set it up again. Not much good sitting in a box, I will find it and use it :)

Also the only setting i noticed that changed was the raid config. As to times thats hard to tell as in the end i removed the battery to reset my cmos in an attempt to boot up :)

Thx for the replies it has put my mind at rest.

Edited by Molten
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Thx for the replies it has put my mind at rest.

No problem.

Like I said earlier, the battery is your most likely suspect. However, I'm just not sure why certain settings would be wiped if something surged through the battery, I would imagine that if something surged through the battery all BIOS settings would be reset. Again, I'm not an electrician, though, so, I guess anything is possible.

However, it is strange for the battery to only act up once like that. If it does it repeatedly you may want to check your battery (although they should last for years).

Indeed, it is strange for it to act up only once. Depending on how you view it, though, one time may be a good thing or a sign of something even worse - as I said in my first post, I simply ignored it when it happened to me, it didn't happen again for a good 7 or 8 months. If it does act up repeatedly, though, press the battery theory harder and see if you can figure something out with it. I wouldn't worry much, though.

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