A constellation of symptoms regarding BIOS, keyboard/mouse, sleep mode, HD's

[canusa53]

New to forum but semi computer literate and willing to become moreso. In fact, will be building first later this year however..........on to more current and pressing issues. Starting here for info before other alternatives.

The hardware

HP Pavilion model m8430f (about 4 years plus old)
CPU- Intel (R) Core (TM) 2
CPU Speed- 2.40 GHz/1066MHz
Cache RAM- 8192 KB

Memory - 4096MB/PC2-6400
BIOS Revision 5.22- 03/28/08
Core version -08.00.14
Product # KJ376AA-A2L
American Megatrends

Mouse and Keyboard
Microsoft Wireless Comfort Keyboard 5000 w/ Intellipoint mouse

Two external HD's
1-WD My Book 1111 2 TB
2-A Lantec model with a Seagate #ST375064OAS

Windows Vista 64 bit

The other eve was burning a dvd, let it burn over night. Next morn puter was seized, turned off holding power button. Turned back on but mouse and keyboard seized. Turned off, power button quickly turned it off instead of holding for a several moments. Checked BIOS boot menu saw missing HD info (WD, WD Virtual). Wound up system restore brought things back into shape, sort of. Sleep mode switched itself. Instead of mouse waking a quick push of power button woke system. I reconfigured and all was ok for a few days. Did some research on net: CMOS battery issue, cables from HD to mobo were some possible culprits. Hmmmmmm.....things were ok for a few days. Mouse issue came up again and it seized a couple of time but I reconfigured, rebooted and it was okay. Have been contemplating as to what to do and have check boot menu on occasion to see if it is consistent. It is not. Sometimes all drives are listed. Also sometimes the settings menu is offset when I open it and can only view 2/3 of it ( and it is magnified by a half or so) This morning wife pwrs up and it is seized. Mouse/keyboard not responsive past "esc" to access boot menu or F9 for recovery. The clock was seized also at 4:13 am and I do not think it was ticking while I was booting/rebooting. And I do not recall if it was ticking in BIOS. I did remove/jiggle/clean bluetooth receiver kb/mouse @ USB port and it seemed to do the trick , all was ok. I reset clock once I got fully booted to Windows.

I had toyed with the bluetooth reciever once before this past week and it bounced back.

I had taken the sides off a couple of days before all this began and dusted out but there were no problems for those couple of days.


Now, these issues here seem somewhat independent. A bum bluetooth ( and yes, I changed batteries) does not explain the BIOS boot shennanigans, does it? CMOS battery? Cabling?? Hard drive heading south??

Basic Input much appreciated.

 

[landran]

I would suggest replacing the CMOS battery. Usually they are CR2032 sized button batteries. What you're describing kinda sounds like a bad CMOS battery. When they go they play all kinds of funny tricks on you and your motherboard. I'd also suggest running HDtune to make sure that your hard drive isn't the culprit. Just my 2 cents.

Heads up. If you change your CMOS battery, you WILL lose all your CMOS settings. I suggest writing them down so that after the change out you can put them all back to where they belong.

 

[canusa53]

Yikes..............did indeed change battery but did not write down settings. Thought only time and date would be affected and that settings were laid out in BIOS. However.....strange......after change out the thing booted.........time on desktop was a couple of minutes fast and I changed that. Time in BIOS reverted to 24:00 as well as date (to 2001) but I could not change those. It froze after in input the first value of time. This morning..........it booted up, did ok for time, then froze. I managed to "thaw" it, mouse working, keyboard ok but noticed how the date values on Google start up was for 2001. Reboot, set up, and was able to change date and time. Shifted values on Google start page until mouse and kb seized again. Now, I open side again and closely inspect caps and see at least three at an angle, a possible sign of cap failure. Am taking it to shop to diagnose in the morning. However, will I be able or the shop be able to reconfigure CMOS?

In any event, thanks for your input. Like I mentioned in my original thread I will be doing my first build this year but may be doing it sooner if the diagnoses is too costly for this current issue.

Lane

 

[MindoverMaster]

At this point, Id say your board is failing. I'd looking at getting a new system. Salvage what you can.

 

[landran]

When you reinstall the cmos battery, BIOS will revert to stock settings. These settings are usually good enough to get your system running. Maybe not tweaked out but running. Those caps kinda look like paint cans and they may be the culprit. I'm not sure, but they might be on their way out but still usable up to a point.

The only other thing I can think of is checking your power connections. I have personally had issues when a Hard Drive connection is loose. If that's the case, as soon as it loses power or the data connection gets loose (even for a millisecond), your system will freak out and stop responding without giving a BSOD.