Possible CMOS problem in startup

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Hi again, folks! A few days ago, I had occasion to "transplant" the innards of my PC from my old Cooler Master case into a new Ultra Gladiator case. The components are as follows:

Biostar G41D-M7 mobo
LGA 775 Core 2 Duo @ 3.0 GHz.
4GB DDR2 RAM
Seagate 1TB HDD
Radeon XT1600
Asus Xonar DG sound card
generic 4-port PCI USB card
Windows 10 Technical Preview
400 watt PSU

All components were running fine--that is, UNTIL they got moved to the new case! Now, when I try to power up the system, it refuses to detect the hard drive! The BIOS screen simply shows NO hard drives being detected!

I've checked all the connections, and as far as I can tell, they're all correct. The memory is also plugged in correctly. What is NOT correct, however, is the position of the "clear CMOS" jumper. In fact,it's the exact opposite of what the mobo's documentation says it should be! When I reversed the jumper to its supposedly "correct" position, however, the system utterly refuses to power up at all! What has me scratching my head, however, is that this board is virtually brand new, and was working perfectly with the jumper set "backwards" UNTIL I moved it to the new case! It's too late for me to send it back in for a refund, I'm afraid, and while I have most all of my data backed up on an external drive, it's beginning to look like I may need to get yet another mobo after only 6 months! Since I'm on a fixed income, I really don't want to go that route unless I absolutely have to. Is this mobo defective, or what?
 
Solution
MarkW
Strip the motherboard down to the CPU, 1 stick of memory, and the video card. Physically unplug or disconnect everything else.

If it refuses to boot, change the jumper you are confused by. There seems to be 2 ways the jumper can be on. And then there is no jumper at all. Try all three options and see if it will attempt to boot at all. Something else you can try is removing the cmos battery from the motherboard, and booting without it once. If it boots, power down and put the battery back in. Then see if it will still boot with the battery back in.

If you have got it booting with just the 1 stick of memory, the CPU and the video card, then you know the motherboard is at least partially functional. At this point, add the mouse and...
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MarkW

MarkW

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Dec 7, 2009
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Strip the motherboard down to the CPU, 1 stick of memory, and the video card. Physically unplug or disconnect everything else.

If it refuses to boot, change the jumper you are confused by. There seems to be 2 ways the jumper can be on. And then there is no jumper at all. Try all three options and see if it will attempt to boot at all. Something else you can try is removing the cmos battery from the motherboard, and booting without it once. If it boots, power down and put the battery back in. Then see if it will still boot with the battery back in.

If you have got it booting with just the 1 stick of memory, the CPU and the video card, then you know the motherboard is at least partially functional. At this point, add the mouse and keyboard to the mix, and power up again. If this works, go into the BIOS, and reset it to the Default Settings. Save/Exit, and let it boot again. If it boots up this time, power down, add the other memory stick, boot up again...

Keep adding one device at a time. Power up, test to see if it will boot, until it wont. Then find out what you just did is stopping the system from booting.

At some point either you will identify a problem device, or the system will be completely back together and working.
 
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Solution
G

Guest

Guest
I submitted the problem to Biostar's online support. One of their technicians explained that the documentation was basically just a guide, and that, in actual production, the jumper could wind up being oriented either way. It seems, therefore, that the jumper was in the correct position all along! I'm going to try two things before I start looking for another mobo: First, I'm going to move the hard drive data cable to a different SATA port on the motherboard. If that doesn't work, I'll try replacing the CMOS battery, which might have become discharged just from the mobo sitting in the box before it finally got sold. If that doesn't work, then I'm going to give up on Biostar altogether, since this would be the second time their CMOS chips have given out on me. Stay tuned!
 
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