Virus causing CMOS problem??

Cookeh

Cookeh

Cookeh

Soldato
Joined
21 Jan 2010
Posts
8,442
Location
Ceredigion
Hey,
Came home and turned my PC on to be confronted with a message about the CMOS - however, it wasnt on for very long before I pressed F1 to enter BIOS to try and find an error.
There was nothing odd about it, everything was as it should have been, so I exited bios and it booted normally.
Whilst going onto two sites I go on regularly, this being on and yahoomail the other, I got security issue warnings with both sites, despite it being fine on the other PC's in the house.
Wondering if a virus could have caused this problem and the CMOS problem, if not could you guys suggest other things that may have?
Other "symptom" HDD is much louder and clicks :confused:

Sorry for the lengthy paragraph :eek:

Thanks,
Cookeh
 
I would have said virus right up until you mentioned the hdd clicking. Unless it's just coincidence. Best off doing a complete scan for any virus or malware, see if that fixes it.
 
It's certainly possible for a virus to attack the bios from within windows, but it would be rare and particularly malicious. HDD much louder suggests it's working a lot more than normal, which would be a symptom of a virus.

I think your operating system is compromised, but the cmos error was coincidence. Best of luck resolving this.
 
Really? One of mine grinds away madly when I get it to do something intensive, but is otherwise quiet as a kitten and passes testing without issue.
 
if it was me i would try wiping hdd and reinstall everything
and possibly clear bios at same time...
 
How old is that PC?
Have you checked is clock reseted when you completely shut it down (pull the plug/use PSU's switch) for longer than few minutes?
BIOS battery being empty causes that and date being reseted might mess with security certificates in browser.
 
This PC is rather old, cant quite remember age, as its been upgraded through the years.
base spec is as follows:
Skt478 Intel P4 (Northwood) @ stock (3.2Ghz)
ASUS P4C 800E-Deluxe
2gb unbranded PC-3200 DDR Ram
460W CM PSU
 
EsaT said:
How old is that PC?
Have you checked is clock reseted when you completely shut it down (pull the plug/use PSU's switch) for longer than few minutes?
BIOS battery being empty causes that and date being reseted might mess with security certificates in browser.
Click to expand...

I'm with you on this one, I think the HDD clicking is co-incedence although slightly worrying as well as it normally signifies the start of the death of said hdd.
 
Not reading all the post properly but if you had a bios error / message it may have reset if its reset it may have lost the date / time

check the system date, if its reset to 2000 (or anything thats wrong) you will get security warning all over the place
 
Okay, update:

Ran MalwareByte and had 4 corrupt/infected folders and 3 corrupt/infected files, those are now fixed according to MalwareByte.
Still getting the CMOS errors every single boot.
Any ideas?
 
given the age of the machine it could be the cmos battery is starting to fail, meaning it's not keeping time properly.
Are any of the cmos settings being lost?
 
in windows, check the clock/date in the corner. you can synchronise the time with an internet server, which will stop the security warnings. However, if your bios battery is flat, that the clock will keep resetting upon each reboot and you will have to keep synchronising on each startup until you replace the battery
 
The message simply states:

CMOS Settings Wrong
CMOS Date/Time Not Set
Press F1 to Run SETUP
Press F2 to load default values and continue

The latter is the option I always choose, and yes, the clock and date are always miles out. February 2000, 00:10:00 is what it displays :confused:
 
like i say, you can synchronise upon each boot, and this will solve your certificate problem, but it sounds to me like a dead battery.
if you dont have a spare to hand, just find ANY motherboard whether in use or not and swap the battery out to test. It should still come up with the error the first time, but if it goes away upon subsequent boots, then it may be something else. All motherboards always have and probably always will use excactly the same battery.

edit: stupid question, but have you tried pressing f1, and changing something really minor in the bios and saving it? (ie, change the fsb from 200 to 201mhz). does it keep resetting each time after that?
 
thingemajib said:
like i say, you can synchronise upon each boot, and this will solve your certificate problem, but it sounds to me like a dead battery.
if you dont have a spare to hand, just find ANY motherboard whether in use or not and swap the battery out to test. It should still come up with the error the first time, but if it goes away upon subsequent boots, then it may be something else. All motherboards always have and probably always will use excactly the same battery.

edit: stupid question, but have you tried pressing f1, and changing something really minor in the bios and saving it? (ie, change the fsb from 200 to 201mhz). does it keep resetting each time after that?
Click to expand...

Yeah, upping the FSB or touching anything related to overclocking causes a bluescreen :mad:

And dont have a spare to hand, short of cannibalising my sisters pc, and neither parents nor sister will be happy with that :(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom