Would anyone be able to give advice : Cold Boot goes to BIOS 100% of the time now

For the past year I would toggle the power to ON for my PSU … give it a few seconds … then press the Power On button on my PC. Some times when I didn’t wait enough that ASUS window would come up telling me to setup my BIOS.

The past two nights when I toggle the power ON to my PSU and press Power ON for my PC that ASUS window appears something like “F1 to set up BIOS … something something about setting RAID for my SATA”.

  • I go into BIOS it sees my 3 internal Hard Drives : C drive plus my two game drives.
  • my BIOS clock reads 01 / 01 / 2009 and the time is off too
  • I set my BIOS clock to the current day and time
  • I “view” / confirm that my 3 internal Hard Drives are listed ( none missing ).
  • at this point I have “Saved and reset” and I’ve “Discard changes and Reset”
  • either way no changes are reported. ie: REALtek audio set to DISABLED (I have a CLabs sound card)

my system boots up and all my disc drives and cd/dvd drive are seen.

*At this point I can “RESET” and my system resets normally … no side trip into BIOS.

*AT this point I can “SHUTDOWN” shutsdown normally … I give it a minute or two - NOT shut off the power as I usually do to my PSU - and Press the ON button to power up my PC and all goes smooth right into Windows 10.

After shutting down - turn the PSU toggle power switch to off - come back later and power on and reboot again the ASUS window appears again “press F1 to something something Sata drives you may want to set up as a RAID …”

  • the BIOS clock is reset to 01 / 01 / 2009 + the wrong hour minutes
  • my 3 internal hard drives are seen under that SATA information window
  • I can “save and exit” no changes and restart or I can “discard and exit” and either way Windows 10 boots up fine at that point. Restarting or Rebooting also works fine takes me right back to Windows 10.

*** I guess I need to replace my little battery on the mother board? CMOS battery? I’ve been using it for 5 years now. When I cold boot my PC acts as if I have installed a new mother board … it acts like it doesn’t remember but I make no changes (all seems good) and I can boot to Windows.

*** MY firmware bios flash is old 2015 and I’ve never flashed a bios before and scared to even attempt incase something goes wrong. Never done it before is the big hurdle. I just can’t risk financially to attempt and end up with a computer that doesn’t even function.

Thank you for any tips on where to begin.

Thats probably it battery has given up, if its not soldered in its easy enough to replace if not it will require someone with soldering skills and or a new motherboard
the date being wrong will screw up your system eventually windoze never liked files being newer than the bios clocks date

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Thank you very much.

Other than pop the Old battery out and replace with a new one (been reading alot on the internet) should I just leave it at that?

ie: I’ve read about unplug the power line to the PSU , remove old battery , wait 10 minutes , replace battery / and or reset pressing the CMOS button …

Thank you again

yes, change the battery, look on your motherboard you should see a round silver battery about the size of a Nickel. It is a CR2032 Coin Battery and you can buy at almost any store with the other batteries.

If you don’t see a round silver coin battery but instead see a yellow wrapped battery on wire, this is simply a CR2032 Coin Battery on Wire, that you can also find easily on amazon. (if you have this check if 1.0mm or 1.25mm pitch connector)

Once you replace your battery, upon your first boot go into your BIOS and change any settings you need to for your setup, then save/exit. Next boot should boot like normal.

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should be good just reset the date and time everything else is probably auto detected anyway.
Switch power off remove mains plug try and switch pc on from front power on button, with no plug in the wall it should discharge the power safely. wear an anti static band , if not touch a radiator or similar .
Remove battery and replace . Put cover back on and plug pc back in. Start it up , go into bios and set the time and date, check it can still see your hard drives quit and save machine should restart normally. Leave it on for a couple of hours just to be sure battery is fully charged ( probably ok tho )
That should be it

Good luck

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I can’t articulate how much I appreciate your kind timely responses and reassuring knowledge.

Thank you - Tom

ps: I can see 1/2 the CR2032 (looking -haven’t verified) coin battery sitting beneath my video card. If it’s a CR2032 I have some already in my battery drawer (car fobs). thanks also about the date + time comment how it can affect system files. good to know.

vanster : took a peek at both Alphea’s and your profile. Mother board manfacturer … help directly from the source. :slight_smile:

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Also keep in mind that turning off your PSU is only really needed when you’re doing internal work on the motherboard. In all other cases it’s very much adviced to never actively turn off your PSU.

Turning it off and on reduces its lifetime by a much more significant amount that just leaving it on, plus it’ll keep a very small part of your motherboard under power (which includes in most modern motherboards, exactly that battery :slight_smile:

Thank you splutty. I have been turning off my PSU out of habit incase of a storm or electrical grid outage.

After replacing the CR2032 and a couple restarts to BIOS followed by a couple restarts and shutdowns it’s all working.

Thank you

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If you’re worried about power spikes, you’re much better off investing some money into either a small UPS or a proper power block.