My aunt, at 80, has been converted but she still dual boots as she's struggling to get her head round gimp, so she wants to retain windows for photoshop..........

anyway, the other week, we installed the latest ubuntu (9.10 I think it is), after that she complained that her system kept reverting it's time/date setting to some time in 2003, and she wasn't able to get into the ubuntu until she'd reset the time in the windows install (XP pro).

I suggested that it could be the motherboard battery but before I could get over there to check it, she'd gone out, got another battery and had a go at installing it herself.

she now just gets a blank screen and nothing else.

In the meantime, I managed to break my wrist yesterday so it's no driving for me for a while......

is there anything that I can tell her to try before she gallops off to the pc shop and gets charged lots for something I'm hoping might be reasonably straight forward to cure/mend please ?

regards

john

Just guessing if she remove the battery it might be possible that she loose her BIOS settings.
If she do not have special settings , it might be use full to reload the default settings.
To get in the BIOS during she need to press a key sometimes it is the Del
key
But if she has special settings she has to set again.
Hope it helps

Finding faults...

I assume that this is a system with a case that opens.

The system does not POST? Is it possible that the battery has not been put in with the right side up?

Is there a copy of the motherboard manual in case the BIOS has to be cleared and re-set by setting a jumper? Google will sometimes return information about jumpers if you know the motherboard model.

Hi,

Check. to see if the battery is placed incorrectly. The '+' side should be placed UP. The clip(s) on top should slide over the top outer edge of the battery. You should make sure that when you clear the BIOS to have power removed. Once the POST is performed then tell her to press either 'Del', F1 or F2 to enter the BIOS. This hotkey information is usually displayed on the POST screen. Once into the BIOS you can then load the 'Defaults'. You may need to make special settings but the default should get you a boot unless the boot device must be changed/selected. Or requires special settings for the storage devices.

Even with the battery removed you should be able to enter the BIOS and make adjustments to boot. But every time the power is removed and no battery installed you will need to adjust the BIOS.
So the proper battery should be installed correctly.

thank you all for the replies. at least it gives me some idea of where to start looking to see if we can sort it before having to resort to expensive computer shops etc....

i'll report back when i've managed to get over there and have a look.....


again, many thanks for the replies.

regards

John

hi

the most common battery is cr2032 but that may differ for hers...pls grab the old one out of the bin...and read it

2) The motherboard manual should have a guide on what keyboard buttons to press to get into bios.

3) If her bios is...kaput on next bootup...earth yourself against psu...after turning off case switches...but leave power lead to socket in please...it provides an escape route for earth.....
then....only if kaput....cross your legs and remove battery.....then with a metal thingee....screwdriver works for me.....short the battery bottom connector that sits under where the battery would be....to the sides of the battery holder...which is also metal....this shorts the battery.....which clears the bios.

4) however your motherboard may have a jumper that does the same thing....normally very close to the battery....
some bios require you boot up with battery and jumper off then reboot after settings made and jumper set...acts like a lock
some bios require you short...change the jumper to bridge 2+3 and not 1+2....well you get the idea

bottom line find that motherboard manual or search the net for it

Hi,
If the person is at the same potential and remains at that potential then the power cord should be removed for safety sake.

The repairman should first touch some part of the case/chassis to discharge. A safe way for a repairman would be to use a wrist strap if you are going to recommend that the power plug is to remain in place. Don't just jumper yourself to the case or chassis, the wrist strap has a 10/100 MΩ resistor in series with the lead to isolate the person.

As for using a alternate by jumping the battery clips, why? That's what the jumper is for. Clearly mark on the MB and manual. The user must be sure to have the power removed when doing the short.

You dual boot your 80 year old Aunt? Impressed

krita is also a possibility (and the user interface is a bit cleaner) as is Gimpshop, which has a deliberately photoshop-like UI.

Oddly, here, you can buy a coin cell for about £1...or you can buy a sheet with about a dozen of them for about £1. the suggestion from onebuck seems the most likely, but you have to read 'UP' as away from the motherboard, in circumstances in which the case puts the battery in an odd orientation.

Also:
Just because it might not be completely clear; from an ESD point of view, the only requirement is for the person and the equipment to be at the same potential (and it doesn't matter what that potential actually is, from an ESD point of view, but it could be an uncomfortable for the person if that were up at 1 KV and their feet were at 0 Volts); so you can and should remove the power cord, grab the case firmly to ensure that the two are at the same potential at the start and have a high resistance connection between the person and the case stay at the same potential, even if some electrostatic charging occurs subsequently (although if all you touch are the battery connections, you are unlikely to damage anything...there will be a relatively big capacitance on the power rail and the human body model capacitance is relatively small).

I spoke to her on the phone today, she explained that she'd downloaded and printed some stuff about changing the cmos battery and followed the instructions.

She confirmed that the battery is the right way up (+ upwards), but she still gets nothing.

It seems that the system isn't even doing a POST, so I'm guessing that the BIOS might be corrupted or something like that.

She said that she'd found the motherboard instructions, but was still trying to decypher them i.e. work out whether she might be able to get the system to get the default BIOS settings to work from the CMOS chip, but she said that the instructions didn't seem to be very helpful in pointing out whether there was a reset for it on the motherboard or whether she needed to do something with the jumpers.

So she's decided to see if she can get it to the local PC store and get them to see if they can sort it out instead, as she feels a little lost without it.....

Thanks to all with the various suggestions and/or ideas of what to look at and for, they're very much appreciated.

regards

john

Your capable aunt..

The battery is the right way up. We can assume that it is the same type battery that was taken out; your aunt is competent.

As has been suggested, this aunt can clear the BIOS by setting a Jumper if there is one, or shorting the battery connections, which is the same thing.


Without any power connected, and without the CMOS battery installed, move or emplace the correct Jumper and wait for 5 minutes. See the motherboard manual to find the right Jumper or pins to short. There is usually a single jumper on two of a three pin set near the CMOS battery. Sometimes there is pair of pins alone, or with a Jumper on one pin of the set.

Alternatively, hold a paperclip across the two contact surfaces of the battery holder for a few minutes.

Then one re-installs the battery and sees if there is a POST, and on that first POST enters the BIOS and chooses the Optimized Default Settings.

Your aunt could begin by leaving the power off and the battery out over night to insure that the motherboard capacitors are drained, and the board is ready to power on.

If this woman can manage the GIMP GUI, she can certainly attempt this before spending money at the shop to have them try the same thing.

Luck with it.

Hi,

Since your aunt found the manual can you supply the Motherboard manufacture & model. Maybe we can aid her with additional information by decipher or locating the jumper for her.

BTW, be sure to tell her that any clearing of the CMOS will require that the power be removed.

thanks for the further replies,

no I can't get the mobo spec's/info now as she gave in on wednesday and took it to the pc shop.......

she said that they explained that it shouldn't be too much of a problem to sort.

plus i also explained that once they sort the lack of POST issue and recover any BIOS setting needed to get it booting, it's no hardship to get it dual booting again.....

I suspect she just capitulated because she was a little worried that she was getting in just a little too far over her head.......

thanks again for the guidance and once it's up and running again I'll be directing her toward this thread so she can at least find the relevant info and other details, should she need it in the future.

regards

John

Hi,

Your aunt reminds me of a Great aunt of mine. Aunt Josie was very independent and did things on her own. She ran a farm, drove an old Willis jeep everywhere. She could do anything with just about nothing. My Grandma was a person that could do about the same as they were raised to fend for themselves. You would think they were twins but were years apart.

I would think they would attempt the tasks the same be it a PC or cow. Charge on until they released it was time for some out side aid.

I'm hoping the guys at the shop can help her without too much trouble.

Yes they did. She phoned me at lunchtime to say that she'd picked the PC up and just wanted a bit of guidance about firing it up again, which she'd done, but had booted it into recovery mode (why, I don't know) so I just gave her instruction on how to start the X server manually, which worked first time. She then shut it down to reboot it to make sure it was going straight into a graphical login from the main boot option.... it did, so she's now back up and running and seems "happy as Larry" with it.

Apparently they charged her "a basic call out fee" of £30, which she was quite happy with.

regards

John

p.s. Oh and technically speaking, she is a "Great Aunt", but who's really worried about the generation thing. She's "seen the light" and mainly uses linux..... which is all that matters AFAIC

Hi,

Glad to hear she's up and running.

This is off topic but the thread has brought things to mind.

I've got a friend who is a WWII & Korean veteran. He flew several different type of craft. He's 97 and still uses his PC daily to communicate with people all over the world. At times he has some issues and his wife will give me a call. I just love to go over to aid him. I really enjoy his sharing of experiences and refuse payment. I tell him he should document his experience so they can be shared. I walk away with wonderment as this guy is a true hero to me.

His stories can be so exciting. I'm a Air Force veteran and have done nothing like what Joe has done for our country. We're losing our vets daily and some are left to the unknown.

I think a lot of the service industry has gotten a bad rap for ripping people off. A lot of the good businesses do a lot that people are not aware of since most don't beat their own drum.