Asus P5k Premium - Bios clears itself when power is cut to MB

[jimmy154]

My Bios clears itself when power to the motherboard is cut off.

I have upgraded to the latest bios (version 1101) and put in a new CMOS battery.

Could the anode and the cathode of the CMOS battery be shorted?

Would incorrect RAM settings cause it to reset itself every time? I don't think so, that doesn't make sense to me, but I'm out of ideas :confused:

Bios settings are more or less default, except RAM is set to 667 MHZ, do to errors occurring in Vista on the "Auto" setting.

[junkymagi]

Does the date/time reset too?
If it does, you have a problem with the power supply to the bios; battery, battery housing, tracing from housing to bios chip broke or shorted by sliver of meteal.

If it doesn't then the bios thinks there's a problem with your "overclock" settings and reverts to defaults to protect itself.

Or I may be full of crap, hehe.

[jimmy154]

Yeah, I think it's an issue with the CMOS getting power from the battery so it can remember my settings. Unfortunately, I don't know what can be done about this.

I took apart the computer and checked out the battery and housing and tried to check the connection to bios, but I couldn't find the bios. It's a lot smaller than it used to be, I'm assuming because I didn't see it. Not much I could see anyway, probably :drool:

[junkymagi]

Hehe, by bios I mean as it's booting up hit DELETE to bring up the bios window to show configurations. See if the time is being blanked too.

[w2richwood]

try clearing cmos by unpluging power from wall pulling cmos battery and putting cmos jumper on 2/3 for at least 30 min.s btw welcome to the forums
Rich

[junkymagi]

0-o

[jimmy154]

Yes, CMOS and time is being cleared too.


btw welcome to the forums
Rich

Thanks for the warm welcome, now please allow me to be a bit of a douche :eek:

try clearing cmos by unpluging power from wall pulling cmos battery and putting cmos jumper on 2/3 for at least 30 min.s

I read this many times in forums, for different CMOS problems then mine. My CMOS clears all the time, that's the problem. What does this do? Make sure it's extra clear?

[dylskee]

Is this a new build or did the problem just start occuring? What bios version were you running before?

[junkymagi]

Time being cleared is bad.

The "put on pins 2-3 for 30 minutes" thing, I don't know where that came from, clearing bios with those pins takes like 2 seconds when the computer's off...

Have to ask, is the battery in correctly? ie; not upside down :p
I think you're going to have to pull the motherboard out and put it on bubblewrap and take a large magnifying glass and a flashlight and look at the tracings around the battery for a shorted or cut tracing.

If you can't find one, then it's the chip itself and those are not replaceable by regular people :(

[w2richwood]

clearing cmos with the jumper can help even over nite.cmos should be cleared after a new bios flash every time then on reboot set defualts reboot then set your opions
Rich
a rma maybe in order here asus is easy to work with if you call them

[jimmy154]

Is this a new build or did the problem just start occuring? What bios version were you running before?

I don't know what the previous bios was. Should I try to use an earlier one? It was an earlier bios version than the one I use now, I know that.

I will reinspect the motherboard when I get a chance again :clap:

[w2richwood]

check your cmos battery just becuase its new dont mean its good check with a muti tester
Rich

[dylskee]

I don't know what the previous bios was. Should I try to use an earlier one? It was an earlier bios version than the one I use now, I know that.

I will reinspect the motherboard when I get a chance again :clap:

Yeah I would try an earlier version just to rule it out but it really sounds like you have a deeper issue here. Is this a new build or did the board just start having this issue out of no where?

And I would definitely try what Rich has suggested also.

[jimmy154]

Yeah, it's a new build. I noticed it about a month after I build it since I rarely turn my computer off. Making my problem more of a psychological annoyance than real wasting off time annoyance.

I tested the batteries with a voltimeter. They are both above 3 volts.

The case is a mess though. It might be shorted somewhere although I don't see it. But I didn't see where it was shorted when it didn't power on, but then again I tried seeing if the BIOS remembered it's settings when it was outside of the case and with only the elements plugged in that are needed to post.

I got 2 - md4096kd2-800 PNY memory modules for this board, so I wouldn't have to go into the BIOS at all (hopefully) when it clears itself, but this board doesn't post with those stick or one of them, in the correct slot; A1, I believe is the slot for one. This board doesn't seem to have any QVL memory 2 GB stick though, according to my possibly outdated manual. I should probably stop writing at this point.

I come back when I learn more, hopefully :shrug:

[DocClock aka MadClocker]

You should inspect the board for "whiskers" that might have grown between the traces (no joke)especialy on the bios chip...the bios chip is usualy nearest to the clear cmos jumper. These whiskers usualy happen/grow when a device is powered on and off a lot. Seen it on Modern Marvels

[Category 5]

Wow. Same problem with my P5K Premium Onyx board. Stored settings in the 2 bios banks remain intact, but the BIOS itself resets along with the time and everything.

Anyone figure this out?