Question BIOS won't remember any setting or boot options

[rakinar2]

I have a weird problem with my Dell OptiPlex 7080 Tower. Each time I power it off (unplug the power cable for like an hour or so), the BIOS resets every setting to default. E.g. it forgets every boot option (e.g. Windows Boot Manager, Ubuntu) my system has. I have to manually add those in order to boot into the OS I want. Date/time are also being reset. This does not happen when I keep the system plugged in. Also I see the power button blinks with amber light when starting the system after keeping it unplugged for an hour or so.

Does this mean the CMOS battery has failed? Or any other components have also failed?

 

[Lutfij]

Does this mean the CMOS battery has failed?
A CR2032 doesn't cost much, run to the store and then replace the CMOS and see if the next boot up, after you place all the relevant info in BIOS, and then boot to OS, then shut down, see if the time is retained.

You might also want to make sure that the BIOS version for your prebuilt is up to date.

 

[DaleH]

I have a weird problem with my Dell OptiPlex 7080 Tower. Each time I power it off (unplug the power cable for like an hour or so), the BIOS resets every setting to default. E.g. it forgets every boot option (e.g. Windows Boot Manager, Ubuntu) my system has. I have to manually add those in order to boot into the OS I want. Date/time are also being reset. This does not happen when I keep the system plugged in. Also I see the power button blinks with amber light when starting the system after keeping it unplugged for an hour or so.

Does this mean the CMOS battery has failed? Or any other components have also failed?

This is a symptom of a CMOS battery failure. CR2032 - only a few dollars, just replace it before doing any other troubleshooting.