Dell 9100 PC Amnesia

[Daddyofdamac]

Dell 9100 PC Amnesia on Startup

My Dell laptop 9100 will loose configuration when a complete shut down is made after being on for a while. If I do a restart, it works just fine. But if it's been on for 30 minutes or so, it looses it system configuration. The funny thing is though, I get no screen but I can hear everything running, fans kick on, I can hear the hard drive clicking about, and the power lights blink but I get a no screen at all. This is how I know that when the system has lost it's configuration because when it does come back up it says "System Configuration Invalid" so I have to go into the bios and set the time so it'll come back on.

I've never seen this before and it's really got me stumped. I tried a new hard drive, reseating the memory, upgrading the bios, and new drivers for the graphic card. No success. I was told that it may be the system CMOS battery that may be bad but somethings telling me that that's not it.

Can anyone provide any help? I would sure appreciate it.

Thanks!

Daddyofdamac

[Fruss Tray Ted]

I was told that it may be the system CMOS battery that may be bad but somethings telling me that that's not it.

That's the usual first thing to try when system settings are not kept. But more often this happens when you reboot.

Also try disabling sleep or hibernate if you use any of these.

[Daddyofdamac]

Wow, thanks for the quick reply Fruss Tray Ted. I did try disabling the Sleep and Hibernate but I still get the same results. Again, it really only occurs if I do a complete shut down. A restart generally does not affect the start up. Also, if I do perform a shut down and I let the system sit for around 30 minutes or so, it generally will start back up without a problem. Think it might be the CMOS battery? Also Ted, have you ever taken one of these laptops apart? The manual makes it seem easy enought.