Hi guys,

I gather the problem I have (CMOS error message) is fairly common, but I've not seen anything that sounds like mine!

I've recently had major problems with getting my monitor to talk to my hard drive. Have upgraded pretty much all my hardware (motherboard, CPU, PSU..) and understand this can send things a bit haywire anyway!

Last night as an experiment, I took the graphics card out and the monitor suddenly reconnected with the computer but it then presented the CMOS problem.

When I tried to log into my profile, it kept trying to register Windows but as none of the drivers, including internet, appear to be working it couldn't register so logged me off again.

At the moment I'm at the end of my tether with all the problems I've had! Don't think the battery is the problem but then I could be wrong!

And why did the monitor only start working again when I took the graphics card out?

Help! Hope somebody can help me and the above isn't too much of a ramble!

If the BIOS has been 'flashed' (upgraded) then the CMOS options are reset.

You'll need to go back into CMOS setup and set the options to save it. Unsaved options would trigger the CMOS/GPNV error.

If the BIOS has not been flashed then maybe it is the CMOS battery on the motherboard needing replacement.

If this is a new board forget about the battery as it should be good. Did you load all the motherboard drivers from the disk?

If the graphics is working off the motherboard VGA but not the Graphics Card then you probably need to install the card drivers.

If you are trying to run XP it will need to be reinstalled onto a new motherboard.

Originally Posted by jephree

If the BIOS has been 'flashed' (upgraded) then the CMOS options are reset.

You'll need to go back into CMOS setup and set the options to save it. Unsaved options would trigger the CMOS/GPNV error.

If the BIOS has not been flashed then maybe it is the CMOS battery on the motherboard needing replacement.

If this is a new board forget about the battery as it should be good. Did you load all the motherboard drivers from the disk?

If the graphics is working off the motherboard VGA but not the Graphics Card then you probably need to install the card drivers.

If you are trying to run XP it will need to be reinstalled onto a new motherboard.

Thanks for replying so quickly!

I managed to resolve it by resetting the CMOS.

As the monitor wasn't working before, I couldn't install the drivers and even when I got the monitor working, Windows appeared to have been deleted. A vicious circle!

I got into the BIOS and changed the boot-up location priority list so it would load up straight from my XP disk.

At last my computer is working again!