CMOS Checksum Error

[BigBloke]

Hi there everyone,

First post here for many moons...

Well, I have a very stubbon problem:

I have an Toshiba laptop Portege 4010 which is about 4yrs old, 933MHz, 256MB, 30GB HHD. Anyway the girlfriend wants to take it away with her to just to surf and stuff. Since it was at its time a very advanced system, I thought that I could resurrect it...and well, that where the problems have begun:

First time since 1 yr, I power-up and get:

Bad Checksum (CMOS)
Check System and Press F1

Well, I press F1 and nothing. Look through the Forum here, a few suggestions of leaving it on with the charger running for 24hrs. Try all this, no change.

OK, so order and install a new mobo battery. No change, same error message.

OK, try to update the BIOS, insert a USB floppy with a BIOS update form Toshiba. Same message, can't access the BIOS.

Ok, change the RAM, maybe that. No change.

Ok, lets try a spare 60GB HDD, format that and install. No change.

Ok, maybe it really is a problem with the mobo. Think about a new mobo, is only around USD500, so order a used mobo from a known company on EBay who has a 100% rating with about 4000 ratings, so the guy is probably legit and has a 7day rertun policy.
Mobo arrives, change all the stuff around, and what do I get?

The same message!!

My mood has changed to, lets say 'annoyed'.

Now I am truly perplexed. I have changed everything, but I get the same message. I am looking for constuctive suggestions. I have made contact with the guy who sent me the 2nd mobo, so that suggestion can be excluded. I am intrigued as to what other problem it could be. What am I missing?

If I format a 60GB HDD through Windows, will that be sufficient to install in my old laptop and then try to boot from the recovery cd's supplied with laptop as I am not sure it the necessary boot sectors will be installed? I saw no selection when I formatted it for it to be a 'bootable' disk as it was formatted in an external USB HDD case.

Thanks for any help!!

[liambl]

Try resetting the bios on the new mobo by taking out the battery, shorting the pins for a fey seconds, put it back in and try it then.

[BigBloke]

Am having problems with my laptop mobo and a checksum error, however that is not the topic here.

If I format an 2.5" HDD in a usb casing using Windows Explorer etc, will this be sufficient 'formatting' to install the hdd into the laptop, and then be able to install the OS through the recovery CD? It has been a long time since I have done something like this, and I am not sure if it puts the correct DOS files onto the disk.

Thanks for any help.

[glc]

Most recovery CD's will take care of formatting for you, you can just install a blank drive.

[BigBloke]

Well, a small update on this problem.

I tried the shorting of the battery connection without the battery and it there was no change. I am a little hesitant to do that with the new board. Can I do any serious damage by doing this and making the new mobo useless?

I have received another mobo which was tested before it was sent, and it was working. I have put the hdd, battery, RAM (new) etc in, and am getting the same problem. By method of elimination, it can only be 2 things, the hdd or the keyboard not recognising an F1 input.

Based on this, I have have the following questions:

1/ I have a external hdd in a usb case. Can I just format it in Windows, insert it into the laptop and it should work, in the sense that it would be recognised by the BIOS, and not booting as there is nothing there.
I ask this because since 3 mobo's are giving the same error, pure probability says it must be elsewhere. I now assume it must be a fault on the hdd whereby the BIOS is not recognising the hdd.

2/ When the Toshiba splash screen comes up, when I use the arrow keys, I can select where to boot from. If I choose the CD Drive, it still comes up with the Checksum Error. Does this mean by being able to select the CD Drive (or network, sd card etc) that I have some access to the BIOS, however limited?

3/ Could a faulty keyboard actually be responsible for all these problems?


Thanks for any help.

[BigBloke]

Thanks for the reply.

The problem is (if it is a problem) that the external drive was a storage disk. I have since removed all data and it was subsequently formatting using Windows; thus my question.

Is there another method which is better, or is this really sufficient?

The problem is that even if I select to boot from the CD Drive, I still get the checksum error, even though it is a different mobo.

[glc]

Threads merged for continuity and moved to the laptop forum.

[thefultonhow]

If you think it's the keyboard, plug in an external one and try using that to press F1.

[kilgoretrout]

By method of elimination, it can only be 2 things, the hdd or the keyboard not recognising an F1 input.

There are other possibilities. Bad or shorted cabling, corroded pins on some connector, etc.