Computer Starts But Only the First time?

overbound

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Sep 13, 2009
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A friend has a computer that neither of us know too much about. It got stuck on the boot screen where you can enter the bios or setup and wouldn't move you couldn't even enter the bios. Not really knowing what to do I took out the bios battery and put it back in the computer booted up normally however if the computer is reset or turned off and back on I get a blank screen when the computer starts. The only way to get it to start again is to pull the bios battery again and every time after. At one point my friend says he heard the motherboard say failed due to overclocking (or something like that). The best I can figure is that some of the setting in the bios are now off because of pulling the battery and need be reset. The problem is I know very little about computer hardware and messing with the bios so I'm hoping someone here can help me out.

Here are the known PC specs

Motherboard: AsusTek A7N8X-E
Video Card: Geforce 6800 GT AVG
Memory: cmx512-3200xlpro Corsair 400 MHZ 2 512MB Sticks
Processor: I'm not exactly sure its an AMD Athlon 1094MHZ something.

Any help would be appreciated greatly I'm really "stuck".
 
Sounds like your BIOS is corrupted or something like that. You might want to try and get into the BIOS screen (usually have to press Delete, F1,F2 or something like that). The option to get into the "Setup" shows up when the initial BIOS splash screen comes up (usually has ASUS A7N8X-E on the screen). Once you get into the BIOS screen you should be able to access all of the options of the mobo. Most mobo's have an option to reset all settings to "Default". Usually it is just like F12 or something like that. I'd select that option and save your settings. Than see if the system will boot up and then try restarting the system again. If it restarts without any issues, than your probably good.

It is also possible that your CMOS battery is bad or weak, thus not saving the BIOS settings. You could change the battery out and see if that fixes the issue. The battery is pretty cheap too, so check it out.

Here is one on Newegg.com for $3.99 + shipping or you look around locally for them.

Startech RV2032 Lithium CMOS CR2032 Coin Cell Battery for Computer Motherboards - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16899200009&cm_re=cmos_batteries-_-99-200-009-_-Product