Symptoms that suggest 1. bad MB, 2. bad CMOS battery, or 3. bad cpu?

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Wolfrequiem

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Jul 12, 2015
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Hey, guys,

If everything else in a system checks good, and you *know* for sure that the PSU, HDD, etc., are all good, and the following happens

"I hooked the MB up and nothing happened immediately, so I left it for a couple of hours while we ran some errands. Came back to a CMOS Checksum error and the screen was frozen. I restarted it and it powers up, there is power distribution, hdd, fans, etc., just no activity or system beeps."

what does that suggest the problem is, the processor (what I'm hoping), or is it the MB? Or could it be a bad CMOS battery or dead RAM? Of course, I guess there is the final option that it could be a combination of things. The board was pulled (it's not mine) and was tossed in a corner somewhere, and this is what happened when it was exchanged in a fully functioning PC that only the MB's were changed out on. It's one I'm thinking of picking up for a couple of bucks to have as a backup, and I'm just trying to understand what is "dead" on it.

Thanks!
 
Solution
Shaun o
If it was a bad C mos battery, then the sign that it needs to be replaced would be that the time and date, plus all of the stored bios settings of the board will default to factory, or base settings. when main power, or the system is powered off.
The end result is the bios is always on once you boot the computer so it should work fine when the system is on only loosing it`s settings due to the cmos coin cell battery being flat or out of power loosing settings as said when the system is powered off.

A checksum error can relate to bad memory, and should at least be tested with three memory test passes to check it is not the problem. If you have more than one stick of memory in the system you are best testing one at a time in the system...
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Wolfrequiem

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P.S. He did say originally, before I asked him to hook it back up: "Hooking up the power supply, the fan power works and the CPU gets warm." So... maybe I'm off on thinking it not the MB.
 
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Shaun o

Shaun o

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Oct 7, 2007
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If it was a bad C mos battery, then the sign that it needs to be replaced would be that the time and date, plus all of the stored bios settings of the board will default to factory, or base settings. when main power, or the system is powered off.
The end result is the bios is always on once you boot the computer so it should work fine when the system is on only loosing it`s settings due to the cmos coin cell battery being flat or out of power loosing settings as said when the system is powered off.

A checksum error can relate to bad memory, and should at least be tested with three memory test passes to check it is not the problem. If you have more than one stick of memory in the system you are best testing one at a time in the system.
Making it easy to find the faulty memory module.

You will also get a checksum error if the hard drive in question you are using has physical errors or bad sectors on it.
A check sum can relate to a bit of data in a stored area of a memory location or a storage medium such as a mechanical hard drive.
Used as a string to verify a start pointer of a data location, it`s end point, and the size of the block of data.
If the data does not match the checksum.

It means it has been corrupted by bad memory or data storage.

But since everything passes through memory corruption of it is more likely memory based if the hard drive returns no errors.

The last cause can be where a cpu in the socket has a bad contact, bent or missing where a pad or pin does not meet the contacts of the socket, and can when a set of data is executed cause an error or corruption of data, blue screens of death at random times.
So needs to be visualy checked for damage to the socket or cpu pads or pins configuration. All good ?

Next.

If after tests all of the above and each component tested passes.

Then you would consider that the bios firmware has been corrupted and there for re flash the bios firmware of the motherboard as a last test to resolve any problems. by updating to the latest bios firmware version for the motherboard. In case the old version of the bios does not fully support the cpu you have in the boards socket That may be causing the errors.

This is what I would do in order to find out the cause or errors in a logical order.

 
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Wolfrequiem

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Jul 12, 2015
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Thanks, Shaun. My problem is that I don't have the board in hand to diagnose it, as it's one I'm looking into picking up as a spare. Mainly, I don't care if the RAM and CPU on it are bad--it's a combo deal--if the MB sounds like it might be all right, as it's all I'm after. This is all very useful information, though, I appreciate it. It's only $20 for it, but at the same time, things are tight and I hate to just waste $20, too. You all know how that goes, maybe. So, while I know my way around a PC a little better than most folks, I don't know my way around it like you all do, and appreciate this input. I'm just thinking that if it were the MB--if it were what was dead--it wouldn't be going through the motions.
 
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