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Having a problem whenever my system boots up...

I

Icewall42

n00b
Joined
Sep 1, 2006
Messages
7
All right, so I like to think I know something about computers since I was able to build a rig that has functioned pretty well for the past year or so... but I'm completely stumped over the problems I'm having now. I'm hoping they are just simple problems, seeing how I've scanned and r-scanned my computer for viruses and spyware and have always run such things on a frequent basis. But anyways, here we go. First, here are my computer specs:

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ processor
ECS NFORCE4 motherboard
1 gig of Corsair Value RAM
120 gig Western Digital hard drive
ATI RADEON X800XL
X-Fi ExtremeMusic sound card
Like a 450 watt power supply... came with the case.

Think that's all of it... anyway, here's the problem. I boot up my somputer one day, it loads all the devices, but then it switches directly to the BIOS screen. But I don't need to change any of the settings, and I haven't changed or overclocked anything. So I exit without saving. Starts to load the devices again... but goes straight back to the BIOS screen. At this point I can't even load into Windows. So I tried saving and exiting. Same problem. Finally, I went into the boot device menu before the BIOS screen can even pop up. I select the hard drive (even though it's already selected) exit the menu... and Windows finally loads.

Later on, I boot my computer up again. Runs fine. Now, this morning, I boot it up, and after it loads the devices it screams at me "Warning! computer is entering safe mode. Please reset the CMOS frequency." Then Windows loads with nothing seemingly amiss.

Now like I said, I'm not as computer savvy as I'd like to be. So I don't know if this is just a simple issue, or if it's something serious. Again, I haven't overclocked any of my hardware (everything completely refused to overclock when I tried, processor, videocard, and all) and I haven't fooled around with the settings. I left pretty much everything on default, and my computer and been running quite beautifully for over a year.

Can anyone help me out, maybe suggest some things to try?
 
Just for starters, I'd check the CMOS battery. Its a little cell battery that should be somewhere around the bottom of the board. From what I understand it is what provides the current to hold the data in CMOS. I've seen computers do some pretty flaky things when it starts dying, although generally they just ask to have the date and time reset. There's a good chance this isn't it, but since it costs about a dollar for a new battery, its worth trying.

good luck
 
Rarely are power supply's that come with cases worth a crap. I would get a quality psu and try that.
 
Yeah I've heard that PSUs that come with cases suck. I've been contemplating getting a better one.... when I have money... but if that's what's causing the problem I'll have to bend over backwards and get it replaced. If not, I have to wait till I have some extra money on hand.

About the motherboard battery, I've had the same recommendation from someone I know so I think I'll give that a try first, since it seems an inexpensive thing to tinker with. If that doesn't solve my problem... hmmm. I get the feeling that reformatting my drive isn't going to help this problem but I could easily be wrong.
 
Reformatting will certainly not help, since the computer isn't even accessing the partition at the time when it has the problem. The only parts that are really being used are the psu, mobo, ram, and and vid card. So the issue has to be somewhere with them. Like Sideroxylon said, it could be your psu, but i would bet on your motherboard over that. if you haven't, try re-flashing your bios, and see if any newer versions are avaiable online. However, since stock psus are junk, it might be worth it to upgrade that anyway. I'd recommend thermaltake, antec, tagan, or e-power if your on a budget, but that's just the brands that I have experience with. There's a list of psus to stay away from in the psu forum.
 
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