Re: Dell BIOS
Martin McCormick composed on 2017-01-16 11:52 (UTC-0600):
I don't know how common this is but the BIOS' of two Dell
Optiplexes plus the BIOS of another Dell Dimension don't stay set
the way one would like them to. As a computer user who happens to
What models are they? If of approximately 2002 to 2007 vintage, they could be
victims of the bad capacitor plague:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague
I've resurrected several, but also failed on several, by replacing bad caps.
be blind, the setup process is a royal pain in the backside
because since there is no OS booted, the only output device is
the VGA output. I have to hook it up to a monitor and have
someone like my kind and patient wife or, before I retired, a
coworker change the boot sequence order from floppy-C:-CDROM to
CDROM-floppy-C: or CDROM-C:-floppy which prevents the hard drive
from grabbing the boot sequence each time.
I sympathize. I have a bunch of different models Optiplexes. I've had three
different ones waste an obscene amount of my time lately. Each of these is
installed in locations that make opening them up for maintenance a significant
inconvenience.
The first, a 780 with a Dell PCIe DVI port card and connected via DisplayPort,
when shut down from Linux puts my new Dell 21:9 display to sleep in a fashion
from which it cannot be awakened until after I remove and replace the 780's
power cable. Even after a BIOS update it took quite some time to determine that
the only way to acquire normal behavior was to remove the DVI port card.
The second, a 745, even with latest BIOS, has taken to reporting low battery
voltage, after the previous battery voltage was reduced to nil. I replaced it
with a brand new battery with measured voltage up to specification, but it still
pauses at every power up to report low voltage even though clock is correct.
The third, a 270, has decided to randomly report failed RAM. Each time it has
done so I've opened it, wiggled or removed and replaced the sticks, and then it
would work normally. As I write this I'm running Memtest86+ on it after having
replaced both sticks with matched pair of different brand but same 3-3-3-8 CL3
specification.
I don't think the CMOS batteries are dead because the
clock still seems to keep time so I am guessing that something
happens that the BIOS code sees as an error maybe during bootup
so it decides to re-order the sequence. One doesn't discover this
until the next time the CDROM doesn't spin up when a bootable
disk is in it. By the way, the CDROM works fine when mounting a
CD or ripping one.
Clocks will keep time even with voltage quite low. Batteries are cheap enough,
as little as $2US for a card of 5 or 6, that they should be replaced, or at
least checked with a voltmeter, if ever there is any indication of a problem
that might be CMOS related. It's also a good idea when a battery has needed to
be changed, to clear CMOS, then restore any desired custom settings.
--
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)
Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!
Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/
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