[meezy]

I have an Alienware Aurora DDR that is about 4 years old. It has an AMD thunderbird 1400mhz 266 processor that is sitting on an ASUS A7m 266/550/WOL/2DIM motherboard. IT has a gig of ram. I was using it today to play an internet game on greasemonkeysteve.com website. It froze out of no where and I rebooted the computer. When i booted back up it showed me the BIOS screen with the following error message in the advanced block of the BIOS: "During the last boot-up, your system hung for an improper CPU external speed setting. Your system is now working in safe mode (BUS: 100mhz, DRAM:100mhz, PCI:33 mhz). to optimize the performance and reliability, make sure the CPU speed conforms to the specifications of your CPU." I dont have a firm grasp on the BIOS really but what i did do was go to the exit block and loaded setup defaults and saved. After that i saved and exited and when it restarts it locks up after it detects the primary master and primary slave and the floppy drive light will not shut off. ANother problem i have while in the bios is the computer will freeze up when i go to the BOOT block of the bios menu . I have never had a problem of this nature before any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Dan O]

I would try resetting the BIOS again to the Default settings, if that does not work after rebooting the default settings must not be right for your PC, so you will need to experiment with setting different options. I would disable all optional components and features to begin and then add them back one at a time.

BTW: I also moved you thread to the Hardware forum as your problem is a hardware problem not a Windows problem, which then hopefully you will receive better replies.

Good luck.

[meezy]

Ive tried resetting defaults and restarting. Doesnt work. Ive tried changing most of the options in the bios and it still wont boot up. Some people i have talked to said to try and flash the bios but i read that it could kill your motherboard possibly.

[norton850]

My last system (an Athlon XP) used to periodically give me that message for no particular reason. I'm not sure however if that's your only problem. Still start by going into BIOS usually under Advanced chipset features and make sure the FSB(?External Frequency Setting) is set to 133. Save and Exit.

[meezy]

when i do that and restart it runs the memory test and it gets all the way up to the point where it is detecting the primary master and the primary slave and it locks up and the floppy disk drive light stays on.

[winbob]

Just grasping at straws here...go back to the Bios, make sure that Floppy Detect is TURNED OFF, and that the Boot order has HDD0 as the first selection.

I'm hoping that the simplest probable cause MAY be a bad Floppy causing the boot process to hang on it?

Admittedly a verrrry long shot!

[meezy]

that is my problem when i try and get into the boot menu of the bios, it locks up on me and i cant change anything. Man, when things go downhill they go downhill at lighting speed for me!! I think the bios is corrupt or something, ive never seen this before.

[policetac]

Pop the battery to reset your BIOS. Check all IDE's, Remove all but the floppy, Then add your HD, etc. until all is recognised one at a time.

policetac@yahoo.com

[~Candy~]

Was this problem ever solved? I'm working on a similar one.

[RLJ1959]

If you clear the cmos by removing the battery like policetac said, then reconnecting all your drives 1 by 1 should do it. Sounds like a hardware problem to me.