What can cause a loss of BIOS settings?

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I have not cleared the CMOS using the jumper, or removed the motherboard battery....

What else can cause all my BIOS settings, date/time, the lot to be reset?
 
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So if it was the failed battery surely the system would not boot up?

untrue. the system will still boot up fine. it will just use the default factory settings stored on the board itself. all you need to do is replace the cmos battery and re-enter the bios details. otherwise it may ask you to enter the date and time each boot up (i have seen this on older models but not on newer as of yet)
 
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untrue. the system will still boot up fine. it will just use the default factory settings stored on the board itself. all you need to do is replace the cmos battery and re-enter the bios details. otherwise it may ask you to enter the date and time each boot up (i have seen this on older models but not on newer as of yet)

Guess you live & learn, didnt know that.
 
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On an old system I would automatically think that it was the battery, but the motherboard is only a few months old.

I have had to do a fair few hard restarts recently (holding down power button to switch off) and it has happened twice after doing this. Can that cause the BIOS settings to be lost?
 
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Guess you live & learn, didnt know that.

hehe glad to help :)

On an old system I would automatically think that it was the battery, but the motherboard is only a few months old.

I have had to do a fair few hard restarts recently (holding down power button to switch off) and it has happened twice after doing this. Can that cause the BIOS settings to be lost?

not as far as i am aware no. i have had to do a fair few hard restarts on my pc as of late and never had any bios issues from this. if you change the battery and you still have the same problem, i'd recommend contacting the manufacturer
 
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I had an old Foxconn board once that gave me hell - used to see 'CMOS Checksum error - defaults loaded' and this was solved by replacing the battery, only for it to happen again a month or so down the line. I checked that the board was not shorting on the case and thus draining the battery... no. Turned out to be a faulty board. Needless to say I stay clear of anything with Foxconn on it these days. lol !
 
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By the way - it's your CMOS battery loosing it's charge that is causing this so check for a short first. My old machine thought it was 1980 when I turned it on every day because of this issue. lol !
 
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By the way - it's your CMOS battery loosing it's charge that is causing this so check for a short first. My old machine thought it was 1980 when I turned it on every day because of this issue. lol !

hmm. ive not even heard of that one myself. strange how they never think of ways to stop this completely really.
 
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hmm. ive not even heard of that one myself. strange how they never think of ways to stop this completely really.

A simple short on the system board tracks will cause the CMOS battery to deplete well before it should as will a case short.

They can ensure this doesn't happen but it cost's $$$. Hence why boards like the Asus Formula cost so much as they are all tested before shipping.

Foxconn probably test 1 in 10 or 20 boards.
 
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untrue. the system will still boot up fine. it will just use the default factory settings stored on the board itself. all you need to do is replace the cmos battery and re-enter the bios details. otherwise it may ask you to enter the date and time each boot up (i have seen this on older models but not on newer as of yet)

Same issue with my current ancient rig :(
Occurs when you turn psu off, as battery doesnt hold its charge.
Either dont turn psu off, or buy a new one :)
 
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