Laptop Froze While On Internet

[Noodles]

My laptop froze while I was on the internet, it wouldn't turn off

so eventually I had to pull the battery out and then the power lead (i know

not a good thing to do)

When turning it back on I had an error message which said continue or enter

setup. I went ahead and continued and everything seemed ok, until I had

a message saying that my norton-ant-virus was not upto date?

Then I noticed that the time and date on the laptop had gone back to 2002?

When starting up adware it said my definitions were 1200 days out of date.

So It seems that the laptop has gone back to its original settings??

All of my documents, music and photos are still there.

I turned off the laptop and went into setup on startup. The only thing I noticed

was the computer time and date were 2002? All the rest I don't understand.

Can someone please guide me through the steps to fix this please.

Thanks

Noodles

[Darknight]

your battery on the motherboard is flat ?

[Noodles]

your battery on the motherboard is flat ?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Is this a serious problem and do you know how I can fix this,

Thanks again

[Abandon]

The motherboard battery keeps time, and powers the initial bios (CMOS) settings.

I'm not entirely sure what else it does. I'm a bit shakey about it myself. But anyway, I have had one that needed changing - find your Mainboard manual, find the battery, (it is only large watch battery sized) take it out and go to Pantip. If you are not game for that take the whole Laptop in to the dealer - it is a pretty quick and easy job if they are familiar with your laptop make. Try the dealer shop for that make if you can.

But, I might well be wrong here, I think that your computer should not start at all if the battery is dead. If your com is firing up ok then it's not the mainboard battery that is bust.

You can change the time and date settings in control panel - do that first and see if it resets your date every time you reboot.

Typically a mainboard battery will outlast your use of the mainboard.

[slimdog]

Noodles.

What is the make and model of your laptop?

[autonomous_unit]

The motherboard battery keeps time, and powers the initial bios (CMOS) settings.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I believe that some laptop designs leave out the CMOS battery and require the main battery to keep things alive. Some will have a small capacitor to allow swapping of batteries while the unit is powered off, but this would not help if it was operating until power failure. I had a Dell that warned against

leaving the laptop powered down for too long (many weeks or months); they actually recommended hibernating to disk so that it would restore most CMOS settings (but not time+date of course) from disk when finally powered up again.

The original poster's problem may been prevented by setting the date properly in BIOS the first time, before Windows had a chance to go and confuse itself. This might be a good thing to try if the

laptop is ever forced to reset like this again. BTW, most laptops and modern desktops will power-cycle if you press and hold the power button for an extended period of time (IBMs are around 4 seconds, which may be some standard value from the ACPI specs?). This is preferrable to cutting the power source. Some also have a tiny reset switch hidden in a hole where you have to jab it with a pin, kind of like you're killing a catfish... but avoid sticking pins in random vents and holes, because you may end up killing the catfish.

[Amethyst]

Noodles Just to let you know that your PC might be at risk of being infected by a deadly virus....It happens to me 2 weeks ago...i did not update my virus database and also im not on Firewall.....after being online for only 10 mins on the MIRC my screen suddenly when blank....

and i cant even start on safe mood...and serious parts is i can even format my harddisk and its on bad sector.....SO i went to my technical support office ask them to check and in 20 mins they discovered that my Hard DIsk is on bad sector and all the data has been demolished by a worm...

i am so lucky that day that my laptop has another 1 month of warranty ...

all my data are gone my precious works are gone so every thing is gone...i am so lucky that day that my laptop has another 1 month of warranty ...

and at last they change my hardisk to a new ones ....

To be honest with you im am now very careful while on the net ...so better get your tech check on ur HD

tytus

[Sporting Dog]

I have this probably occasionally with my Toshiba laptop which is nearly 3 years old. I think its because the battery no longer retains much charge or because the connections get dirty. Taking the battery out and then putting it back gets it working again but resets the time/date...and then tells me that my various updatable programs are out of date. So I just reset the time and get the updates. I think the updates haven't actually been lost - I can't see how losing power would uninstall updates, the windows updates are never lost - so it usually isn't a huge problem.

The problem could probably be solved by cleaning the battery connections or replacing the battery - but batteries are expensive and quite difficult to get after a couple of years, and I usually plug my laptop into the wall socket.

[Noodles]

Noodles.

What is the make and model of your laptop?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Sorry for delay in replying...I have a compaq presario.

I think what I'm going to do is reset the time in setup and

see if this helps. I will post if this is succesful.

Thanks for all the replies

Noodles

[Noodles]

That seems to have done the trick.

Thanks for the help guys.

Noodles

[slimdog]

If you do need any replacement batteries for your laptop check out:

http://www.laptopshop.co.uk/compaq-laptop_batteries-b.htm

RTC/cmos batteries are only about 5-6 pounds sterling each

[Noodles]

Thanks for the link

[IMA_FARANG]

That seems to have done the trick.

Thanks for the help guys.

Noodles

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I came to this topic late. I was about to suggest that before you tried anything else, you go into the bios and check the date/time setting. But apparently you got to that before me.

P.S. I'm guessing you are running Windows XP for you Operating System? XP is known for getting "confused" if the system clock has problems.

Edited March 6, 2005 by IMA_FARANG

[Abandon]

C'mon noodles - Don't just say that did the trick, and not tell us what trick it was you applied. We would like to know what was up with your com, just for future reference and knowledge.

Good post autonomous - Learned a few new things there

[Noodles]

C'mon noodles - Don't just say that did the trick, and not tell us what trick it was you applied. We would like to know what was up with your com, just for future reference and knowledge.

Good post autonomous - Learned a few new things there

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I went into the BIOS on startup and reset the date and time. Because the

date had changed, all my settings on my programs in windows

were out of date and messed up. Now everything is back to normal.

Hope this helps

Noodles