New Mobo, Old Harddrive, Help

[dapnac3]

Sometime back I brought a brand new Mobo (ECS K7S5A Pro) to replace a mobo with bad

capacitors. When I powered up I got a message I've since forgotten and then the

monitor would stay blank. I went back to it today and re-seated my video

card...voila...the monitor is working but I still have a problem with start-up. After

recognizing all the drives the scren reads;

cmos setting wrong

cmos memory size wrong

Press F1 for setup

Press F2 to load default values and continue.

My question is....what now? If I go to setup what do I do? I'm sure that's the right

direction but I don't know what to do. Thanks in advance.

[Ginsu543]

Try resetting the CMOS. It's usually done by resetting a jumper on the motherboard. Refer to your mobo manual to find out how. Once you clear the CMOS, go into Setup (go ahead and push F1 or Delete at the beginning of the bootup process). Go through and reset all the values and save to CMOS. That should take care of the problem. If that doesn't work, you may try reflashing the BIOS. Go onto the ECS website and download the latest BIOS for your mobo. Follow their directions to reflash the BIOS. Then repeat the process I told you above and reset all the values.

[bluegreenshxt]

older motherboards may have jumpers on the motherboard you have to set...make sure its the same as your old one...and make the bios settings the same too

[Doc Timbo]

i agree, reset the BIOS first (your manual should show you which jumper to change and for how long), you didnt say if the new mobo is the same model as the old? If not was the old one a gigabyte? There was some hoo-haa about some capacitor electrlyte formula that was stolen and used in 2000-2001 ish but the guy only stole half the formula or something and all these mainboard capacitors were made which then blew their tops.... my old Gigabyte 8IDML's 3 main caps have popped but it still runs so far

[dapnac3]

Original Mobo was a Soyo K7VTA Pro. I've been told (and it was part of the original message from when I first setup this rig) that it may be a bad battery. So I will do the
CMOS thing first and if that doesn't work I try the battery. Is the battery a standard battery or do they come in different sizes.

Also
"If that doesn't work, you may try reflashing the BIOS. Go onto the ECS website and download the latest BIOS for your mobo."

How do you do that when I can't get past start up? I'm using another machine right now. Do I download to a floppy or something?

[Doc Timbo]

yes, try the website from another PC and see what the instructions are. It's normally download a program and put it on a floppy.
now, you DO know you will probably have to re-install windoze because you are using a different model mobo to the original? or at least repair your windoze install (though i dont know how).

As to the actual problem, try resetting the BIOS first with a new battery, then FLASHing. What size HDD's do you have?

[Doc Timbo]

also...try unplugging all the drives and remove all but one stick of RAM and see what happens... so it's just PSU, mobo, VGA card, and monitor plugged into card. If problem isnt listed... add bits back till it does

[dapnac3]

I'm going to work on this, this afternoon. hopefully I'll have good news. BTY the drive is a WD Caviar® WD400BB

<i>"Once you clear the CMOS, go into Setup (go ahead and push F1 or Delete at the beginning of the bootup process). Go through and reset all the values and save to CMOS. That should take care of the problem."</i>

It worked. I haven't changed the battery, just did the F1 thingy and set things manually. It's been so long I forgot what was on this hard drive (dual boot 98 and W2k) Pictures of my daughter HS prom (2 yrs ago). Yes I'm aging myself but so what. I'm glad to be able to. Thanks for all the help. Until the next time Peace.

[Doc Timbo]

good stuff...i'm suprised the OS loaded with a new mobo though.... they normally require a re-install dont they?

[dapnac3]

they normally require a re-install dont they?

I was asked for the cd sometime during the start-up but I wouldn't call it a new install. I can't download stuff for the 98 partition because I don't have a good CD. But both OS's are running for now. I plan on reformat with just one partition using 2k until Longhorn comes out.

[Tecleaus]

Im lost so if I installed a new mobo and processor and put in my old hard drive everything should still work right or.....

[bluegreenshxt]

you will need to reformat

[dapnac3]

If you follow the whole thread you'll that it can be done. However, the preferred way is to format the hd first. :)