I am building my first computer and got all the parts together today. I assemble them all correctly(I had a computer literate person with me the entire time). I had everything all set, went to boot up the system and I get "cmos checksum error". We researched it and we discovered it wasn't the battery. So then we got it to boot up through the Cd rom and had Windows going for a while, until we downloaded a sound driver and then the system froze after we rebooted. All of the drive lights go on and the screen is black. I am positive everything is plugged in, RAM and Cpu secured etc. and we can't get past this. No matter what we do it is the same old black screen. Can't get BIOS or anything to show, just a warning that the monitor isn't detecting anything. Installed AMD2500+ with a Biostar m7ncd motherboard, 512 ram. Any help would be much appreciated
Help me with my computer woes
- Thread starter szakall
- Start date
had Windows going for a while, until we downloaded a sound driver and then the system froze after we rebooted. All of the drive lights go on andszakall said:
You made a lot of progress then to this point.
Well downloading a sound driver should not do this.
Try another monitor.Even a cheap second had that works.This seems like a monitor problem.
Well, The monitor isn't the problem Just tested another one. All of the drive lights are blinking every few seconds, and the output on the screen has an indicator saying "monitor is working, check cables.." etc .
It started doing this after I downloaded the driver then went to reboot. It then started to stop producing the image on the screen, and then I had to manually turn off the power from the switch on the back. I just hope that didn't hurt any components inside although it didn't work before I had turned it off. Arg was at this project all day just to have it do this to me.. I hope none of the components are junk. I was thinking maybe the motherboard was a defect hmm
It started doing this after I downloaded the driver then went to reboot. It then started to stop producing the image on the screen, and then I had to manually turn off the power from the switch on the back. I just hope that didn't hurt any components inside although it didn't work before I had turned it off. Arg was at this project all day just to have it do this to me.. I hope none of the components are junk. I was thinking maybe the motherboard was a defect hmm
Well now it's the stuff that gets me into trouble.Hold on to you hat.
Is there any way anyone could have set the monitor brightness off ?
That is if it's a physical button.not on screen option.
But you said you got an alert on screen message.You must consult the motherboard manual to define this and what it means.
Please oh please,Win ver.
Is there any way anyone could have set the monitor brightness off ?
That is if it's a physical button.not on screen option.
But you said you got an alert on screen message.You must consult the motherboard manual to define this and what it means.
Please oh please,Win ver.
Well, about the message on screen, its just what happens when nothing is plugged into it when it is powered up. Motherboard manual is pathetic, has a few things about jumpers which we already inspected. The mobo has no onboard video so we are hooking it through a GeForce2MX400(had no more money left from buying this stuff had to do with what I had 
) And I dont believe anything happened to the Vid card that could ruin it so quickly. And another important fact, the lights on the front of the computer didn't act like that prior to the installation of the driver.
) And I dont believe anything happened to the Vid card that could ruin it so quickly. And another important fact, the lights on the front of the computer didn't act like that prior to the installation of the driver.We must trace this back to the begininng,the time when and i assume it all worked,right ? Now you have to remember what you might have done after that.I can't.I can't see how a download ended this way. I just can't.
One more point.Building a new from scratch means you have to know how to set the bios.Thats why i discourage it.
One more point.Building a new from scratch means you have to know how to set the bios.Thats why i discourage it.
Alright, Here goes.
All day we are wondering wtf this "cmos checksum error" is, we look on the net and get our answer. We remove the battery and put it back in and *wam* the BIOS appears after 3 hours of trying to access it. So we think cool , well just set it back to the original settings and then reboot, and the thing goes back to the cmos checksum error screen, which is a dead stop. it wouldnt allow us to boot the system through a Hdd so we went through the CD rom and windows came up so then we tested a game, Quake 3 i think just to see if all was working good. It was yet we knew we would be faced with the evilcmos checksum error unless we always booted through the CD rom and we werent even allowed access to the BIOS. So we try to install some drivers and see if we can update the BIOS or whatever and hope it cures it. e get the '97 codec or something like that and install it(the driver causing all the problems). I believe I saw it say It may not be compliant with XP but we went ahead anyways. "Installation complete. Reboot system now?" we chose yes and it did the restart. But, right after the reboot it came to where I am at now. *sigh* The lights all came on, the drives wouldnt even open, the computer froze and no image on screen. I flicked the switch at the back and that cut out the power. That is the story of my hectic day heh ..Try and solve the mystery please so I can rest easier knowing I didn't just throw my money away =)
All day we are wondering wtf this "cmos checksum error" is, we look on the net and get our answer. We remove the battery and put it back in and *wam* the BIOS appears after 3 hours of trying to access it. So we think cool , well just set it back to the original settings and then reboot, and the thing goes back to the cmos checksum error screen, which is a dead stop. it wouldnt allow us to boot the system through a Hdd so we went through the CD rom and windows came up so then we tested a game, Quake 3 i think just to see if all was working good. It was yet we knew we would be faced with the evilcmos checksum error unless we always booted through the CD rom and we werent even allowed access to the BIOS. So we try to install some drivers and see if we can update the BIOS or whatever and hope it cures it. e get the '97 codec or something like that and install it(the driver causing all the problems). I believe I saw it say It may not be compliant with XP but we went ahead anyways. "Installation complete. Reboot system now?" we chose yes and it did the restart. But, right after the reboot it came to where I am at now. *sigh* The lights all came on, the drives wouldnt even open, the computer froze and no image on screen. I flicked the switch at the back and that cut out the power. That is the story of my hectic day heh ..Try and solve the mystery please so I can rest easier knowing I didn't just throw my money away =)
And to answer your edit, I have a friend of mine that knows how to set up everything, and he even knows this is fishy.. we couldnt even access the BIOS without taking out the battery every time we wanted to go into it. then it wouldnt save the previous changes we made and was a continuous loop of repeating corrections. Weird stuff , has never happened to him before
