Have I Fixed My POST Problem?

[Vern1961]

Last few days the old potato has become a bit temperamental. Whenever I powered on from cold, things would whir for a couple of seconds, before stopping the restarting and dumping me in the BIOS screen. Which of course is useless with a cordless mouse!

A bit of Google Fu predicted all sorts of doom and gloom, everything from the motherboard about to die to borked Windows update, and about to get the begging bowl out to the wife so I can go on OCUK or a competitor and build myself a new box. However a last ditch bit of searching pointed to the CMOS battery could be dead or losing power, so I changed that with a new CR2032. First boot still put me into BIOS but a subsequent cold start has loaded me into Win 10 without issues.

A health check on the C Drive came back okay and once the PC was running everything is stable.

So just wondering what else could cause a POST stall and recover or have I nailed the problem? (That said i still need to change the PC at some time in the next few months for something a bit more up to date).

 

[freddie64]

When fault finding a older PC, i always try a new battery first as it is the cheapest replacement part.

Changing the battery resets CMOS, so that could be why you had to enter bios first to put in correct time and date etc. Does it still do it?

Could also be a dying PSU.

How old is PC and what is the spec?

 

[PrincessFrosty]

Last few days the old potato has become a bit temperamental. Whenever I powered on from cold, things would whir for a couple of seconds, before stopping the restarting and dumping me in the BIOS screen. Which of course is useless with a cordless mouse!

A bit of Google Fu predicted all sorts of doom and gloom, everything from the motherboard about to die to borked Windows update, and about to get the begging bowl out to the wife so I can go on OCUK or a competitor and build myself a new box. However a last ditch bit of searching pointed to the CMOS battery could be dead or losing power, so I changed that with a new CR2032. First boot still put me into BIOS but a subsequent cold start has loaded me into Win 10 without issues.

A health check on the C Drive came back okay and once the PC was running everything is stable.

So just wondering what else could cause a POST stall and recover or have I nailed the problem? (That said i still need to change the PC at some time in the next few months for something a bit more up to date).

It tends to be more hardware related because during POST no complex software is running yet, so no chance for windows problems for example. The POST itself is mostly checking other attached components. Because BIOS settings are still typically stored on volatile memory that loses values if not powered, it relies on the battery to maintain those settings when the PC is off.

If the battery dies what normally happens is the settings are wiped and the POST see's nothing is configured in the BIOS yet and may treat this as the first time the board has been booted, and put you straight into BIOS to configure it. Some motherboards may explicitly say its doing this or pause the system boot to give you the option, warning you that it using system defaults.

If swapping the battery has stopped that behavior, its likely the old one was dead and replacing it is all you needed to do. I assume powering the PC down and booting it now reliably skips the BIOS screen as expect? The batteries do last years but it's pretty common to see them fail eventually on older systems.

 

[Vern1961]

Well fingers crossed, since changing the battery I have had four successful POST's so looks like that was the problem.

As stated system is an old potato - Z87K mobo with an I7 4770 CPU, 24Gb RAM, three mech hard drives (total 2.5 Tb) a DVD drive and a GTX1650 (4Gb). And a 450w PSU. Without checking my account at the retailer, I'm guessing it's at least 10 years old now so the battery has done quite well, given the same type in our kitchen scales lasts less than a year.

Very much needs replacing as even with the various tricks and Rufus it doesn't run Win 11 very well (tried and reverted to 10 twice) but at lease now the boot issue is sorted I have more wiggle room to organise a replacement box.

 

[freddie64]

What do you do with the PC?

If it's just basic office type stuff and browsing the internet, maybe get a SSD for Windows to make it feel a bit/lot snappier.

What's the problem with Windows 11?

 

[bledd]

Switch to SSD, you'll kick yourself for not doing it sooner, best upgrade in the last 20 years! Instant speed and silence.


Windows 11 should fly quite nicely on it.

 

[Vern1961]

Two more successful posts today so feeling quite relieved.

I'm still using the PC for gaming and it still does that quite well. Some newer titles I have to run at 1440p including the Dovetail Train Sim World, but that's more down to DTG poorly optimising their work with UE4.

I have certainly toyed with the idea of just putting a slightly better GPU in there (my PSU should just about power a RTX3050, not sure about a 5050) and as suggested a SSD drive to replace the current C: drive to squeeze another year or two out of it, though that depends on getting the Win 10 Extended Security offer to finally appear. As regards Win 11, both times it took okay with Rufus but after a couple of days got very sluggish hence the decision to return to 10.

 

[Tetras]

(my PSU should just about power a RTX3050, not sure about a 5050)

The 3050 6GB is alright if you don't have a power connector available, but otherwise poor value price to performance.

The 5050 follows the 4060 with power in the region of ~130 watts, same as the RX 6600. RDNA2 has generally low driver overhead for older CPUs, which can pull more performance out of them.

3050 8GB was clonked badly by the 6600 on release (some ~30% faster in raster).

 

[Vern1961]

Sounds like the 5050 would be too much for my PSU, then. It also gets to the point where buying a few components might just be better use towards an all new box.

Anyhow just had another successful POST so definitely all sorted. First time I've ever had to change a mobo battery in 30 years of PC ownership (well the first was was actually leased from Radio Rentals, an old 486SX!).

 

[Tetras]

Sounds like the 5050 would be too much for my PSU, then. It also gets to the point where buying a few components might just be better use towards an all new box.

The 4060/5050 and 6600 have the lowest power use of any recent card with an 8-pin power connector that I'm aware of, apart from the 6500 XT which is definitely to be avoided. If your PSU can't run those, it probably won't run anything.

The RX 7400 would be an interesting option if available, but seems to be OEM for now.

You could buy one and give it a go, then replace the PSU if necessary pending an upgrade to a new system?

Though, if you're forking out for a new PSU anyway, a 9060 XT 16GB is way better for the longer-term than £230 for a 5050.