Asus m3a78 stopped booting

[odehart]

My ASUS M3A78 stopped booting last night. I power on and everything turns on [fan, dvd lights, leds, etc]. The monitor displays the ASUS mb screen with the press DEL etc. message and stops. It will sit on that screen forever. Pressing DEl or TAB does nothing. The system has been working fine for 6 months. Any suggestions?

 

[dpaul8]

You will need to reset your CMOS settings.

Make sure your computer is OFF and unplugged from the wall outlet. Please check your motherboard User's Manual for the exact procedure, but it basically involves taking a flat head screwdriver and shorting (touching) the two motherboard pins near the CMOS chip. This should be labeled on your motherboard. Short the pins for a few seconds. You can then restart your computer.

 

[odehart]

The user guide doesn't clearly identify the CMOS pins. However, there is an instruction about clearing the RTC. "Clear RTC RAM (CLRRTC) This jumper allows you to clear the Real Time Clock (RTC) RAM in CMOS. You can clear the CMOS memory of date, time, and system setup parameters by erasing the CMOS RTC RAM data." Is this the same as what you suggested? This entails moving a jumper and then replacing it in the original configuration. I think this is what you are suggesting but I wanted to be sure before doing anything.

 

[False_Dmitry_II]

That sounds a heck of a lot more specific than just wiping the whole CMOS. You could also take that battery out for like 2-3 hours with it unplugged and put it back. that does the same thing.

 

[dpaul8]

The user guide doesn't clearly identify the CMOS pins. However, there is an instruction about clearing the RTC. "Clear RTC RAM (CLRRTC) This jumper allows you to clear the Real Time Clock (RTC) RAM in CMOS. You can clear the CMOS memory of date, time, and system setup parameters by erasing the CMOS RTC RAM data." Is this the same as what you suggested? This entails moving a jumper and then replacing it in the original configuration. I think this is what you are suggesting but I wanted to be sure before doing anything.

Yes, this is the procedure you want. Do it. This will allow you to reboot your system.

 

[odehart]

Tried it. I get to the ASUS screen press DEL to get to BIOS. I am then instructed to press F! to enter setup. I press F1 but nothing happens. It's as if once I'm at that screen the keyboard is no longer recognized. Any idea what could be happening?

 

[thelivingflesh]

take that battery out for an hour, unplug everything, reseat ram.....Usually this will fix it, if not then maybe a bigger pro, which psu did you use, what was the last thing you did, can you reinstall the bios from a usb flash drive?

 

[odehart]

ABSOLUTELY BIZARRE I took the battery out for 5 hours. Put it back in and powered up. The ASUS MB screen appears, I press DEL and the next screen with the F1 prompt appears for less than a second [I don't have time to press F!] and then proceeds to boot to XP. However, the sound and keyboard don't work. So I reboot and press DEL. Now the F1 screen appears. I press F1 and get into BIOS setup. BUT I can't change the system date or time! I try other BIOS settings and those I can change! I then finish booting, XP opens the sound works but not the keyboard. So I reboot, hit DEL, hit F1 go into BIOS, and still can't change the date or time. I finish booting to XP and now the keyboard works! Sound etc., everything works. I try one last time to set the date and time in BIOS and I can't. Tab over to month and then to day and press press 6 for today. Then try to tab to year and nothing. I just sit there looking at the 6. I can't tab or ENTER. I can only ESC [same seuence in earlier attempts]. I exit BIOS and finish booting. This is so bizarre!! Do you [the experts out there] have any ideas? Do I need to upgrade BIOS? Or is there something else?

 

[False_Dmitry_II]

If it's just the date you can't set, right click the time in XP and find where you can tell it to sync to internet time. This also changes the BIOS time.

 

[odehart]

Can't set date OR time in BIOS. Tried synching to time.nest.gov yesterday and I couldn't. XP said it couldn't synch because the date was wrong even though I had changed the date in XP. This morning I booted and the time in the XP taskbar was correct. I rebooted and went into BIOS. I tried changing date and time but couldn't. Any effort to change a setting there simply locks up with only ESC working. Who knows what is wrong. But since the date and time are now correct, I think I will leave well enough alone. I did notice that I now get a cpu fan error but can still boot. I'll have to check that out.

 

[False_Dmitry_II]

That is really odd. It sounds like a bunch of diagnostic stuff is going haywire. Is it still in warranty? You may want to RMA it.

 

[odehart]

Really really odd. No warranty. It's a white box pc but I'll have to check about the mb since that's only 6 months old. The pc is working fine now. Thanks to all for advice.