Compaq CMOS query

[supersonic87]

I have recently upgraded an old system to a tualatin 1.2ghz processor with a compaq motherboard and psu. Upon booting the system it will show an assortment of garbled text (which is always the same), but will still react to the power button (so i'm assuming the system hasn't locked up).

To solve the problem at the moment i'm having to boot from CD (running DSL), but would like to be able to install windows. Looking at other sites it look although the CMOS settings on a compaq motherboard are held on the hard-drive (on a non-DOS partition). looking around I've seen This page, the only problem being that i don't have access to a floppy drive, and have no idea how to put these files onto cd (the Parrot20.30e file will not copy).

I want to know whether i can use my existing hard-drive with this system ad if this is the correct program to use?

any help will be appreciated

[Ritchie]

Hi there

I find that I can usually still operate the case buttons (power, reset) regardless of a lockup, so your system could still be locking up.

If you disconnect the HDD does the garbled text dissapear? Or is the garbled text only when you try to boot off the hard drive? Eliminating the HDD temporarily or trialling a replacement may help to determine if the garbled text is being caused by the HDD or BIOS.

Also you mention the CMOS being stored on the HDD, which probably increases the chance of corruption of settings.

[supersonic87]

Hi there

I find that I can usually still operate the case buttons (power, reset) regardless of a lockup, so your system could still be locking up.

If you disconnect the HDD does the garbled text dissapear? Or is the garbled text only when you try to boot off the hard drive? Eliminating the HDD temporarily or trialling a replacement may help to determine if the garbled text is being caused by the HDD or BIOS.

Also you mention the CMOS being stored on the HDD, which probably increases the chance of corruption of settings.

Thanks for your reply Ritchie, much appreciated.

The garbled text does indeed only appear when the hard-disk is plugged in, but the drive is definely working, as I have tested it with another (fully working) system.

However when i run DSL from liveCD with the hard-drive connected it is crashing, but if I try to install windows xp pro, it will complete the copying of files from CD, but when I have to reboot the system it just goes to the garbled text.

I'm 99% that compaq have something sneaky going on the prevent people upgrading their own hard-drives, but if the CMOS was stored on hard-drive shouldn't it be asking me for new details every time i boot (it doesn't) and wouldn't it revent me launching from CD (if there a specific feature of booting CDs/floopys which is different to HDD booting?

[rjenkins]

Try removing & re-seating the video card, if there is a separate one?

This sounds a bit like it's working through the initial BIOS level screen but failing once it starts trying to use any more advanced OS-level drivers.

Could just be something that's got disturbed while you were swapping the CPU.