Random freeze at startup 1

[StanPulsar]

hello !
I built a PC for one of my friends.
(A64 3500+ on MSI K8Tneo2-fir s939, 2x512 PC3200 dual chan)

It worked perfectly (I tested it for 1 month) till my friend being in a kind of hurry (!) shut it down and didn't wait (!!) and switched off the "multiple power sockets rack"...

since then, at start up, sometimes the pc freezes at random stages (but when it successes to start win2K, it gets perfectly stable again)
sometimes he gets the error message:
CMOS corrupted, press F1 to edit, F2 to restore defaults.

I think a physical "clear CMOS" would do, but since I have to drive quite a bit to go to my friend's, and he's not able to do that alone, I want to be sure before...

thanks a lot !

 

[BadBigBen]

Your assumption may be quite correct... I would, though, just to be on the safe side, get another Battery and replace it...

also, once you are there, run SFC on the OS, as there might be corrupted files, and reallocate the VirtualMemory to another Drive (or swap partition), just to be sure that the OLD one is gone and a new functioning one is in place...



Ben

If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer...

 

[StanPulsar]

Thanks for your answer !
I performed a complete HDD scan/check immediately after the "shutdown incident". No preblems/errors/bad sectors-clusters.
As for the battery, do you mean it could be low? The pc is only 3.5 months old.

So the mist of leads is getting thinner...
I might as well schedule a "clearCMOS" trip shortly...

 

[BadBigBen]

Yes, the batt might be drained...

running a HD check, just fixes/checks if sectors are bad/corrupted, but it does not check for system files!!! you should definately run the SFC (system file checker), and have the Windows CD ready...

on the Commandline type the following:

sfc /scannow



Ben

If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer...

 

[StanPulsar]

OK, thanks BadBigBen !
I forgot to reply earlier...

I could spot the problem a bit more precisely, because no cmos issue was encountered when the computer was shut down but without switching off the power supply (once it's stopped of course!). But, when I did so, then on start up, there was this corrupted CMOS, with default settings.

I replaced the battery, and flashed the bios to write fresh uncorrupted data to CMOS, restored my settings, and it works, even with complete power off.

Thanks !!

 

[BadBigBen]

Not a problem... glad to have helped...



Ben

If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer...