BIOS/CMOS issues with a sprinkling of System Shutdowns.

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Hi, Sorry for the spelling, the huge wall of text and any lack of info you may need. Anyway, I believe that i have 2 issues.

1/ BIOS/CMOS/CMOS Battery.
2/ Random (but seems repeatable) System shutdowns.


The First Issue, When i take the machine apart to clean i remove all cables and hold down the power switch until all the leds go off to ensure there is no residual charge (is that wise?). when i switch the machine on i am forced in to the bios. loading defaults works (i do not overclock anything). Once that is done it loads as expected but the system and os time and date are incorrect. This results in me not being able to browse the internet due to security issues. Not sure how date and time corruption does that but correcting them fixes the issue.

resetting the bios to its optimised settings does not fix the time/date issue and neither does setting the time and date from within the bios itself. If i leave the machine physically disconnected from the mains over night it will not turn on straight away. i will need to leave it attached at the means for a few minutes then i will be forced. loading defaults fixes this but i will still have to reset time and date in my OS then reset the machine to be sure that things like load properly.

Is this a CMOS battery issue? if so, is it any CR 2032 3v battery that will do? the one i currently have is listed as CR 2032 3v.


The Second issue, when i play a computer game called Elite Dangerous: Horizons (the 64bit edition) for 2-3 hours my system switches off and will not turn on until after i disconnect the machine from the mains and hold down the power button until all the leds go off.

The LED's on the motherboard and Graphics card are still lit up after the shutdown as if i had switched off the machine normally. The CPU temp is between 20-34 degrees and the Graphics card temp is between 30-45 degrees all fans are working at the time of the shutdown. Elite dangerous is running on Medium-High settings, below the maximum and is not modified to increase the graphic detail like some of the youtubers have done.

Once i go through the process of resetting the bios then OS time/date and then a system reset to load the machine up properly the computer works fine again. I can play Grand Theft Auto 5 (offline and online) and Star Trek Online for a solid day without a system shutdown. Star Trek Online is playing at maximum graphics and GTA 5 is playing on limited graphics but setup to use every single MB of available Graphics memory.

The last time i had the system shutdown it was rather scary but i believe it was made worst due to my cmos/bios reset method.
The system shutdown during the 2nd to 3rd hour of elite dangerous. I unplugged the mains and held down the power button until the LED's went out then i reconnected the machine to the mains.

The Graphics card and DRAM LED's lit up green. I then turned the machine on but the display didnt activate (the monitor/tv didnt register a signal from the pc). the warning LED for DRAM turned from green to red but the graphics card LEDs (green) were still lit up (the graphics card leds were on as normal).

NOTE: every attempt to switch the machine back on resulted in all my fans switching on correctly and a few standard HDD clicks and chirps.

I then manually switched off the machine. waited 20 seconds (heart pounding away) and tried again. The green LED's on the graphics card and DRAM were lit up. I then switched on the machine with no monitor response but both DRAM and CPU warning LED's were lit up red and the graphics card was still shwing its normal 2 green LED's.

Panicking at this point i switched off the machine at the power supply, then removed the mains cable. waited for a minute or two without having pressed the power button down for the LED's to go out. I then reconnected the mains and switched the PSU back on. the LED's did not come on immediately but they did come back on after 5 to 10 seconds. I then waited about 20-30 seconds and switched on the machine. I then had RED warning lights for the DRAM, CPU and BOOT_DEVICE, the graphic card LEDs were still lit up green and the display did not register a signal from the pc.

I switched the machine off via the case power button (holding it down). I only then referred to the manual and then realised there is a warning LED for the VGA, conveniently placed under where a modern graphic card would be so you cant see it directly but i would definately have been able to see the red LED lighting up the area around it. i believe that the VGA warning LED was not lit up.

After around 15 minutes total i decided to give it one more try. I switched the machine on and the display turned on! I was then ushered into the bios to reset the information. The CPU, DRAM and BOOT_DEVICE warning LED's were still lit up RED. The LED's on the graphics card were lit up GREEN and i could not see any red light from the area of where the VGA warning light would be.After i reset the bios to defaults via the load optimised defaults option i saved then restarted. The CPU and DRAM warning lights went out but the BOOT_DEVICE was still lit up RED.

After loading up in to windows i reset the time and date back to normal then reset the machine. loading back in to the bios on the way. I removed a HDD (with no OS on it) from teh boot order. Saved then restarted. All LED's went off (except the 2 green Graphics card LED's.

Curiously though, every night i switch off the machine (but leave it attached to the mains) the BOOT_DEVICE LED lights up RED until i reset the machine normally and enter bios and press the load optimised defaults button. save and restart and it is gone.

Any ideas as to what may be causing the system shutdowns?


Thank you for your time and patience.
 
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An update since my last post. I have updated the graphics card drivers. removed a cold cathode neon, replaced the CMOS and loaded the bios defaults. removed dust (i do that every 2 weeks) and Removed 3 unused sata cables that were in the machine.

Since those changes my 5v and 12v voltages have increased. 5v went from 4.97 to 5.008 and 12v went from 12.046 to 12.094. I am now getting brown outs (system shutdowns) outside of just playing 1 game. and my MB BOOT_DEVICE_LED is lit up at boot and stays lit occasionally. But hey, at least it remembers its settings after a brown out now. System and GPU temps are still the same with no overheating.

anyway,

What could cause a system shutdown (and refuse to switch back on afterwords)?

and,

What could cause a boot device warning led to light up some times but not others? (note: i can still boot up the machine and the brown outs happen with or without the red warning led lit up.

Thank you for your time and patience.

Oh, i am going to try switching out my PSU to see if that makes a difference. However, i only have a spare 500w
 
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small update: I've replaced my original 1000w PSU with a 500w Cooler Master B500 PSU. I have noticed that the Voltages have again changed. are they ok?

VCORE/CPU is at 1.452v.
3.3V is at 3.336v.
5V is at 4.971v.
12V is at 11.943v.
VDDA2.5V is at 2.508v

Temps listed in the bios are unchanged. CPU between 25-27 Degrees Centigrade. and MB at 23 Degrees Centigrade.

Whilst IDLE with Win7 loaded CPU idles at 20-21 Degrees centigrade (unchanged) and whilst playing GTA online and Elite Dangerous on HIGH settings (not the highest settings though) the CPU is at 35 Degrees Centigrade whilst my graphics card peaks at 44 degrees centigrade. During game play
 

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