Over the last few days my home PC (windows xp) will not start up correctly, I get the black screen with loads of writing on it and at the bottom it says "Press F1 for default settings" It then fires up fully and I now have to reset the date/time always.

Not too sure if I have mistakenly bodged something!, the only thing I can think of was a power cut to the whole town last week, off for several hours.

I 'm a numbnuts when it comes to IT and I bet it is something obvious!

- if possible, take a hard drive and backup important files to it. do this now.

- try rebooting in safe mode (tap F8 key when booting up). if you could not backup before, try it now.

- consider system restore (if you had that feature enabled)

- consider a fresh wipe/install of the operating system (a little annoying, but I got used to it as a windows user).

I would suggest upgrading to windows 7 (fresh install) , especially if you have dual core processor.

Edited June 27, 201115 yr by 4evermaat

it says "Press F1 for default settings" It then fires up fully and I now have to reset the date/time always.

Replace the CMOS battery

it says "Press F1 for default settings" It then fires up fully and I now have to reset the date/time always.

Replace the CMOS battery

Actually, this might be it also. backing up important files is always a good thing however.

it says "Press F1 for default settings" It then fires up fully and I now have to reset the date/time always.

Replace the CMOS battery

Yes, that is almost certainly the issue here.

Now, one thing you can try is just press DEL (or whatever key needed) to get into the BIOS settings. Set the time; then press F10 to save and exit. See if you get the same problem. Even if you don't, I'd go ahead and change that battery whenever you can get around to it.

it says "Press F1 for default settings" It then fires up fully and I now have to reset the date/time always.

Replace the CMOS battery

Agreed, costs about 30 baht.