Hardly a 'boff' but I reckon it's just generally failing to remember settings.
Could it be the motherboard battery has failed?
Waits to get shot down.......
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thanks for your quick ansewer,its 4 years old, do they last that long, does anyone else have any good ideas
thanks very much, your replies are appreciated
thanks again
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Is the clock keeping it's time?
Have you installed anything recently?
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Adam
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the clock hasnt been kepping time, and i havent installed anything recently
i didnt even know there was a battery inside it, is it like the big uns in kids toys or those ones that are like watched batteries or hearing aid batteries?
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It's your battery. I've never known of them going bad enough to lost settings like that but it's too much of a coincidence.
They's only teh small cell type ones but I'm afraid I don't know the exact number. If you take the side off your comptuer, look at the motherboard, it will be obvious where it is. Silver, and round!
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Adam
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I've not been drinking - honest!
lose* settings
They're only the*
Number of the battery - not quantity. There's only one.
Sorry about that!
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Adam
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Not sure this is BIOS (flat battery). Sounds more like you're booting into safe mode.
Do you get any other error messages?
(Thinking about it, does Me have a safe mode? Stuart?!)
-- Lee Having a Fabialous time.
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Long shot - but if the battery isn't holding the BIOS settings, would that not force it into boot mode?
I'm willing to concede it isn't a flat battery - my sister's has been losing the time for a month and nothing else has gone wrong.
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Adam
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... but if the battery isn't holding the BIOS settings, would that not force it into boot mode?
I don't think so, it may lose time/date/disk settings but I think it more likely that Windows just wouldn't boot or boot properly if the BIOS was reset. I'm not 100% though.
If you can get access to the hard disk and find some way of backup up your useful data elsewhere, do that now as it may well be a sign of impending computer doom for your PC. From there I'd be tempted to do a rebuild, but to something less rubbish than Me.
-- Lee Having a Fabialous time.
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its definately not starting in safe mode i switched into safe mode later on to try to fix it,
what about a grahpics driver its a tnt264
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Drivers don't just uninstall themselves. I would do as frostbite said first and change the battery - you'll need to do that anyway.
Can you go into display settings and set it all back again? If so - I'd be pretty sure it's the battery. If not, I'd look elsewhere.
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Adam
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>>Can you go into display settings and set it all back again?
Great minds Adam, Great minds.... :-)
Lee.
-- Lee Having a Fabialous time.
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Lol. Oh yes Lee.
:-)
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Adam
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Wouldn't explain the mouse.
You could try and re-install the drivers for the video, or at least check the display properties :
Desktop - right click - properties - settings - display mode
Worth remembering that Dell are currently doing a new Dell Dimension for £199 + VAT & Delivery
-- Lee Having a Fabialous time.
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ive tried re doing the settings and of course it asks you if you want to apply them, then if you say yes, it will turn itself off to do them, and of course the whole scenario starts again
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Do me a favour. Change the battery. Then at least it's one less thing to worry about it. I'm really leaning with frostbite on this one.
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Adam
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>>battery
No, No, No, no, yes. To quote that bloke from the vicar of dibley.
Adam & frostbite are right - it'll cost you a couple of quid and remove a variable.
They ran from the police but they couldn't escape the law
-- Lee Having a Fabialous time.
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The sheriff's getting everywhere today!
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Adam
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ive tried re doing the settings and of course it asks you if you want to apply them, then if you say yes, it will turn itself off to do them, and of course the whole scenario starts again
OK so that rules out my response to Adski re changing settings in BIOS! It's a fast changing thread this.
Does the ME boot screen (F8 at boot screen) have an option to start to Command Prompt? If so and if it works like 95 would, go boot to commpand prompt then try using the DATE command to set the date there. Run it again to double check, then type WIN and press enter to (hopefully) boot windows. Of course I've never used ME and it might not boot off DOS like 95 used to.
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Mike Farrow
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Derek,
Is the clock running slow or resetting? If it's just running slow then yes you could probably do with replacing the battery but unless it's resetting I don't know how a battery could cause these problems.
Is your mouse USB? If so the drivers have been corrupted in the same way as the graphics. If PS/2 it should still be working (me thinks).
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Mike Farrow
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The clock's resetting Mike. So changing the battery will solve at least one problem.
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Adam
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The clock's resetting Mike.
OK I concede. Was unsure what "hasn't been keeping time" meant in terms of just running slow or going back to 1st Jan 1970 or whatever.
In which case a new battery might solve it once and for all. Have you tried going into the BIOS on startup and manually setting the time? This would rule out/confirm the two being related.
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Mike Farrow
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How? It would reset again surely?
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Adam
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How? It would reset again surely?
Yes it would, but I didn't read that he'd tried that before I finished typing (this thread's moving pretty fast!). I've come up with a better(?) plan above.
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Mike Farrow
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Sorry Mike! I'll shut up now.
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Adam
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Sorry Adam I'm not meaning to offend. I'm just lagging behind this afternoon like Derek's computer :-)
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Mike Farrow
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Could be your BIOS battery mate :-)
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Adam
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It's ironic isn't it: PC's are the most technologically advanced things in your homes and yet they have never been good at keeping time. If you don't use your PC for ages it looses time but if you keep it on all the time the clock runs too fast! Our 386 used to do this and my laptop isn't much better.
Safe mode surely has a mouse driver? Though maybe not if it's USB! Just as you get the "Windows ME" splash screen at startup hit F8 (you have about a second or two). There should be lots of options here, including Normal startup and Safe Mode. If it's highlighted Safe Mode then this is your problem. I can't actually remember now how to make it stop doing this but in '95 you had to edit MSDOS.sys.
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Mike Farrow
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I seem to remember the bad old days of ME rather too vividly. Im pretty sure you get "SAFE MODE" plastered all over the place on it when you're in Safe Mode.
*Pretty* sure. My track record isn't too good this week.
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Adam
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its not starting in safe mode, it starting 16 bit colour, v low res 640 x 480 and no mouse and no curser,
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sounds like its a visit to poundland for some batteries then does it lads?
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i fi do change the battery in that few moments that i take the battery out will i loose any bios settings o ranything?
please advise
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Your whole problem (we think) is caused by your BIOS battery being dead. You'll have to change it anyway which, (if we're right) will solve your problem.
A lot of if's I'll grant you!
What I'm trying to say, your battery is dead so changing it won't do it any harm.
There - that was easy!
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Adam
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oh, er just one more thing....
only joking
thanks very much, poundland it is on the way home, trouble is when the urchins see all those new shiny batteries, they will want them putting inthere noisy toys. pesky kids
thanks again
all the best
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No probs Derek. I hope that's it - post back when it's sorted. Good idea from Frostbite. I wouldn't have thought of that myself.
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Adam
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Types of Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) batteries can be found here:
www.tavi.co.uk/ps2pages/battery.html
and some information:
www.domaincountry.com/articles/computers/time.shtml
I've never had a CMOS battery fail - they last a very long time as the current use is tiny, but there's always a first time...:-(
Most are circular in shape, but getting the right one for your mobo is essential. Any good computer based outlet should stock what you require.
Take out the one you have, take a note of the model type, replace it temporarily and obtain a replacement. Cost will/should be about £2.
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My sister's has just gone. Her board's about 5 years old.
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Adam
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How to replace a CMOs battery (if required):
www.liverepair.com/encyclopedia/articles/cmosrepla...p
This may help with the configuration and remembering the settings:
www.majorgeeks.com/download4049.html
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Never used ME but these might be of interest (only NT had no Safe Mode in the Windows 32-bit systems lineup):
www.computing.net/windowsme/wwwboard/forum/44410.h...l
www.computing.net/windowsme/wwwboard/forum/44630.h...l
www.halls.manchester.ac.uk/internet/problemmanagem.../
www.kayodeok.btinternet.co.uk/favorites/kbasewinme...m
There are a lot more similar sites.
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Blimey - just found this one. If a battery cures it I will give up the day job. :-)
But I'll wait until it's been changed before thinking too hard...
(Clearly the drivers aren't being loaded. Haven't read Stuart's stuff yet but a poke around in msconfig moght help)
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I've just tried booting in 1981 and Symantec Internet Security didn't boot, so driver thing plausible.
BTW I have a 6 year old K6 that's still going strong. As prone to sudden death as car batteries it seems.
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Mike Farrow
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>>If a battery cures it I will give up the day job. :-)>>
It's a fairly common occurance, but not always easy to solve for those who wouldn't/may not be aware of the likely cause, especially as the battery normally lasts for a very considerable period.
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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I'm with smokie; I can't see the connection between the battery and the problem directly, but no harm in replacing it anyhow.
Oh and Stuart, thanks for the stuff on Me! reliable as ever.
:-)
Lee.
-- Lee Having a Fabialous time.
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