Motherboard Suggestions

bobkn said:

"take the CMOS out"??

What do you mean? Do you clear the CMOS (also known as the RTC, real time clock), or physically remove the BIOS EEPROM?

Perhaps I took "fried" too literally. Let's back up: can you boot into the BIOS settings? If so, can you reset them to defaults (or optimized defaults)?

I'm not sure if it's called the CMOS, it's a medium sized circular battery that I have to keep removing for it to have any chance for it to boot.

I can get into the BIOS only if I hear a beep (when it beeps it's like a normal boot where windows will load or BIOS will load up, that beep makes me know that it will boot into Windows)

partians said:

I'm not sure if it's called the CMOS, it's a medium sized circular battery that I have to keep removing for it to have any chance for it to boot.

I can get into the BIOS only if I hear a beep (when it beeps it's like a normal boot where windows will load or BIOS will load up, that beep makes me know that it will boot into Windows)

That's the CMOS backup battery. If you remove it, you reset the BIOS to its default settings.

The normal way to clear the CMOS is with a jumper. (On some newer boards, there's a pushbutton.) Pulling the battery works too, but you have to be sure not to damage the battery holder. (Some mainboards are fragile there, others not.)

I wonder whether there is anything wrong with the motherboard. It sound like there's a hardware problem, but I don't have much experience diagnosing that. Check the RAM? Try a different graphics card (or use the onboard graphics, if one of your monitors supports VGA)?

Best of luck.

partians said:

I'm not sure if it's called the CMOS, it's a medium sized circular battery that I have to keep removing for it to have any chance for it to boot.

Could you elaborate a little more? What exactly does it do with the battery in and without it in? Why do you say you have to keep removing it for it to have a chance to boot?