I need help, i have no idea whats going on with my pc! Here's what happened: at first, my computer wouldnt turn on. The cpu would start but the screen would remain blank. Then, when it finally turned on, i got this CMOS warning thingy. A friend of mine says it could be the battery, but he is not sure. My question is, is it not turning on because of the battery or could it have some other problem? and if so, what could it be? thank you :) (i hope that by changing the battery the problem will go away! *crosses fingers*) and thank you again

It would help if you'd post the exact "CMOS warning thingy" error message. Most likely your battery needs replacing. After you do that though, you will have to enter the BIOS & correct all the settings again. The battery's purpose is to keep power to the CMOS chip when the system is shutdown & therefore keep the settings in memory. Once the battery is removed, the CMOS memory will clear. "If my answers frighten you then you should cease asking scary questions" - Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) in Pulp Fiction

Was there anything that happened, or anything you did, just before this happened, such as there was av power failure, or you changed the ram installed in it, or fiddled with anything inside the case? "i got this CMOS warning thingy." We need to know what the message is/was. Was is "Cmos Checksum Error...." or similar, or 161 ....... Or ??? If that's what you saw, the mboard battery is too weak or dead, or it's upside down in it's socket, or it has a poor connection to it's contact(s). But that won't cause no display, or not booting up when it was booting fine before. Failing power supplies are common and can cause your symptoms. Check your PS. See response 4 in this: http://www.computing.net/hardware/w...

Thank you both for replying...i dont remember what the "warning thingy" was, sorry. I should've wrote it down. i do remember, that it showed a wrong date and after i changed it, it started working again. But then, the next day, it wouldnt turn on again. Oh and no, i havent fiddled anything around...I will change the battery and check power supplies and everything, thank you!

and yeah, there was a power failure a couple of weeks ago, now that i remember..u think that messed up my battery?

so a dying battery wont cause no display...and you're saying it could be a failing power supply.. besides that, what else could it be? do you think that a power failure could've messed something else up on my pc? im sorry if im asking so much, but i love my pc.

The date (and time) being wrong indicates the cmos part of the bios chip is not getting enough voltage from the mboard battery, for whatever reason. The battery retains the Cmos settings even when the mboard has no AC power to the PS at all, and even when the mboard is not connected to the PS. If your mboard bios had parameters set for a hard drive you would have lost those settings too - in that case, if the bios does not find the hard drive automatically with default settings, Windows cannot boot, but you would still get a display, and at least error messages. The power failure probably wouldn't harm the battery, but it might have caused it to develop a poor connection, depending on whether there was a power spike or surge or not. The button type battery usually lasts as long as 5 years or so - if you have a mboard that is that old or older, the battery is probably too weak or dead. "do you think that a power failure could've messed something else up on my pc?" Yes, especially if your computer, and everthing connected to it, including everything connected to AC one way or another that plugs into it, and the cable that connects you to the internet, is not plugged into something that protects against power surges and spikes. If it was a lightning strike that caused the power failure, even that may not be enough. It can damage anything connected to the computer. The most frequent thing it damages is probably the power supply. If the power supply fails, it can damage anything connected to the mboard while failing, even if the power spike or surge didn't. A failing power supply may partially work - fans spin, the hard drive spins, leds come on, but you get no display, and nothing further happens. Sometimes whatever it damages doesn't fail right away. e.g. A friend of mine had a power failure about a month ago. It took two weeks for one of her monitors to show symptoms it was damaged, and three before the TV tuner on her AIW card did the same. The video card showed symptoms right away - a weird display on the same monitor that turned black and white in TV mode later (it's a combo TV/monitor) but at the time I thought it was a software problem, I didn't have the time to spare to t-shoot, so I connected both monitors to a video splitter box she has. Is your video on a card in a slot, or is it built into the mboard? If you can try another power supply with this computer, from another computer you have, or one you can borrow temporarily, you should try that first. See the info at the link at the end of response 2. You could try the monitor with another computer but there is probably nothing wrong with it. The ram will not necessarily be compatible with another mboard, and it is usually not damaged anyway.