Solved: Effects of CMOS Error

[techno12]

I have win98SE and winXP Prof loaded and the system was working alright in the morning. But when I booted it now it opened as DOS error window saying that there is an error in CMOS. It asked me to press F1 to access Setup and F2 to go to Default settings.

2. I chose F2 and thereafter the booting proceeded alright but date got changed to some 2002. I adjusted the date and it is staying so far.

3. Now I am getting a notice during booting on win98 that the "windows has detected a new hardware PCI Ethernet Controller and is finding the software for it. I have two Win98 loaded on different HDD,s and the message appears on both.

4. On winXP, in the system tray there now appears network icon with a RED cross saying that local area network is unplugged. It was not there earlier.

5. But on all the windows the broadband internet is working alright with proper speed.

6. Is something to be adjusted in CMOS?? And how??

 

[rebelmusic]

I would imagine that you have two network cards in your pc, one onboard and one pci.

When you loaded the default settings, you would have enabled any onboard devices.

GO back into the bios, look for "Integrated Peripherals". Inside there have a look for something like onboard ethernet controller or anything that suggests an onboard lan device, if it has "enable" after it, change it to disable.


Otherwise you could try and find the drivers for this card and install it. Either way, its not going to affect your machine in any way, you'll just have a network card thats not doing anything

 

[norton850]

When you set BIOS to default settings if may have made some changes that resulted in what you are seeing. Do you know if your motherboard has an onboard network card (often called onboard LAN in BIOS) and/or if you have a seperate add in network card (which is what Windows is telling you)?

 

[techno12]

A separate LAN card has been installed since the motherboard did not have it.

 

[techno12]

Hi rebelmusic!!

Your method suggested in para 3 worked. Many many thanks!!

But why do you think the error occur in the first place??

 

[heinz57]

You could also try uninstalling both NIC in device manager and then restart to see if they both show up again.

 

[rebelmusic]

Hey again,

When you hit the default settings it re-enabled the onboard netword card. In windows xp this would not be much of a bother with Windows 98 is very picky about hardware no being installed, if windows 98 attempted to install the network card, it would have installed some drivers but not all, leaving the error which you saw.

Glad it worked for you

 

[techno12]

Hi rebelmusic!!
My question is about the initial DOS error window where I was asked to Press F1 or F2. Why did that error window open?? Does it indicate a weak battery in the PC or something else??

 

[rebelmusic]

Hmmm....that can be for many reasons. But you mentioned something about the time. Your Cmos has a time from the day it is turned on and that stays constant. Sometimes, for many different reasons, the time in the cmos is reset. This will then cause an error in windows as the OS and the Bios have seperate times.

When it happens, it gives you that error so that you can either go into the bios and set the proper time, or go with the default settings and let the clock run at the wrong time.

Other reasons this can happen are a change in hardware, an update in firmware or certain software packages that interact more physically with your hardware then most. Like an anti-virus package which plays with the boot sector of your hard-drive before windows loads.

 

[techno12]

So many thanks!! rebelmusic and everyone else!!