Chit Chat
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Good afternoon, everyone.
I'm one of those safety conscious types who switches off and unplugs their computer from the wall socket after powering it down. Unfortunately, however, it has now developed a problem in that every time I plug it back in and flick the wall switch the computer instantly starts to boot up without me pressing its own ON button. Worse still, it immediately goes into error mode and asks me to press F1 to continue or F2 to enter set up.
If I press F1, the computer then boots up okay but the clock has been reset to its original purchase date of a few years ago. If F2 is pressed, we go through a set up process in DOS (including resetting the clock) before booting up successfully.
It's all very confusing to me. If I power down the computer, and just leave it plugged into the wall with the switch down, when I turn it on again the following morning using the button on the tower everything is fine. To a layman like myself it appears as if some sort of power surge occurs when flicking the wall switch that my computer cannot handle.
Well, just leave it plugged in then will be advised, of course, but I'd rather not if possible. Plus, it would be nice to know why exactly this is happening.
Many thanks indeed. All advice gratefully received.
I'm one of those safety conscious types who switches off and unplugs their computer from the wall socket after powering it down. Unfortunately, however, it has now developed a problem in that every time I plug it back in and flick the wall switch the computer instantly starts to boot up without me pressing its own ON button. Worse still, it immediately goes into error mode and asks me to press F1 to continue or F2 to enter set up.
If I press F1, the computer then boots up okay but the clock has been reset to its original purchase date of a few years ago. If F2 is pressed, we go through a set up process in DOS (including resetting the clock) before booting up successfully.
It's all very confusing to me. If I power down the computer, and just leave it plugged into the wall with the switch down, when I turn it on again the following morning using the button on the tower everything is fine. To a layman like myself it appears as if some sort of power surge occurs when flicking the wall switch that my computer cannot handle.
Well, just leave it plugged in then will be advised, of course, but I'd rather not if possible. Plus, it would be nice to know why exactly this is happening.
Many thanks indeed. All advice gratefully received.
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y not try a surge protector first then, if that is your guess.. ?
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I've tried a surge protector, a good one too, but the problem persists just the same.
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Problem: Motherboard has a battery (probably like a CR2025 big watch battery or something) that keeps the bios settings when no mains power. When the power is out it drains. When battery is fully drained, it forgets where it was at, and queries what to do at startup.
Solution: get the manual or just open case and find the silver penny sized battery, replace battery with same. Should be safe but touch case first to earth yourself to same as the circuitry and don't touch other things. |
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Many thanks indeed, JC. I was hoping it might be something as simple as a flat clock battery.
With regards staying safe, wouldn't that just be a case of unplugging everything first, sir? |
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Also, JC, does a flat battery explain why the computer tries to boot up on its own before depressing its ON button?
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My missus turns everything off by the plug. In the morning I put the kettle 'on' the bread in the toaster...come back and nothing's happened
 I never learn...If I was on life support she would blinking well switch me off a night and that would be that.. |
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Yes I'd say so. The "what to do when power on" is a bios setting so if the default when it loses settings is to boot into that error screen then that would explain it. In modern PCs the power always AFAIK powers up the motherboard and the switch for power just sends a signal to the computer so it powers up a mininum amount even when "off". I'm pretty sure on my PC a little LED is on inside when it's "off" if the power is connected. That's also (as it's signal) is why on some computers the power button can double as a reset button if you hold it for a few seconds when it's hung, which you may not know.
So it is possibly a fire risk. If I'm away for a length of time I do try and remember to power off the PC totally myself! |
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Thanks, JC.
I'll endeavour to change the battery and hope for the best! |
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When I said touch case I meant touch the metal chassis/power supply case or something. What you really dont want is to be carrying a pile of static and then earth that into something sensitive. Like the electric shock (even a mild one you don't even feel) when you touch a radiator but going through tiny circuits. I sometimes get a shock touching a tap or a kettle if I'm wearing a certain pair of slippers
 So touch a metal tap first as well for good measure  |
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Some more ideas here:
http://www.rushinformation.com/computer-turns-on-automatically-when-plugged-in-fixed/ |
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Many thanks, gentlemen.
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The problem appears to be resolved. I'm tentatively keeping my fingers crossed it is permanently fixed as the solution seems to good to be true.
I pressed F2 on start up to enter the SET UP feature and, within the POWER section, changed the FAST BOOT option from ON to OFF. If this actually works long term I will be well chuffed. Does anyone know how this setting might have changed itself to cause the problem in the first place? Many thanks indeed for all your help, gentlemen, it was much appreciated. |
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* too good to be true.
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Just bumping to the top in case anyone might be able to shed light on how the FAST BOOT option could have changed itself?
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No new battery then? The other evidence here is your clock also resets, which again happens if your MB battery is dead.
I've dealt with this exact problem in my own computer and a relatives. Tell us it's resolved after you've unplugged the power for a day or two |
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Will do, JC.
You're right in thinking my success thus far has been measured with the computer only being unplugged for a matter of minutes. I've probably been too hasty in my back-patting. I will change the battery anyway ASAP, even though it will be with some trepidation as I'm not really a techie. Any advice where to find it inside the tower, sir? |
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Any idea how or why the FAST BOOT option set itself to ON? I certainly didn't change it myself.
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Points to it not remembering, ie the battery.........
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Factory default I'd guess. When you unplug the power supply for a few minutes it'll have oodles of power in capacitors to keep it going. Try yanking the power when it's just switched on (but windows NOT YET starting!) so it drains it and leave it for an hour.
You're lucky, modern computers tend to just work with the hard drives, earlier models could want lots of BIOS settings for them, if it factory defaulted the settings and tried to boot up with wrong drive settings it could corrupt things. |
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I purchased a £1500 pc with ssd in april, the ssd has failed already. fair play to amazon they are giving me money back. Much preferred they would repair it etc.
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Thanks chaps.
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Ibrahim I don't trust pure SSDs, I've a hybrid SSD/Normal (I think it's 8gb SSD) that's just for Windows and very frequently used apps, the rest of stuff and things liek music and pictures and and temporary files goes on a second normal drive. I'm happy so far with it, no issues. The problem with pure SSDs is they can only take so many writes so for example thrashing temporary files or swap files if you must is very bad for them. The hybrid SSD is supposed to intelligently keep your most used files in the SSD bit and the rest in the normal bit, and 8gb is enough for the core system imho, it certainly boots fast enough for me.
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I was just thinking about why they dont just do away with the motherboard battery and store it in flash memory but the thing is it's got a clock, so needs to keep running. If it's got any power it probably doesn't drain the battery, the only computers I've seen with this problem were unplugged a lot.
You'll notice some electronics that takes batteries, if you swap them fast fine, but you lose the settings if you take too long to swap them, they probably have a little capacitor to keep the settings that'll last just a couple minutes. It's the same sort of issue. |