Messed with Bios, now stuck on blinking underscore

[steve1316]

Do I unplug the power before I touch the 2 pins with my screwdriver then?

Yes, make sure the PC is shutdown. Remove the mains power lead and then the CMOS battery from the motherboard. Then short the pins using a screwdriver.

Shorting the pins means just simply touching them with the screwdriver right?

[absic]

Yes, that's right. The main thing is to make sure you have removed the mains power lead and the battery before touching the pins with the screwdriver, otherwise the CMOS won't be cleared correctly.

Once you have done this and power up again, if you can get into BIOS then you will have to re-set the motherboard date and time.

[steve1316]

Yes, that's right. The main thing is to make sure you have removed the mains power lead and the battery before touching the pins with the screwdriver, otherwise the CMOS won't be cleared correctly.

Once you have done this and power up again, if you can get into BIOS then you will have to re-set the motherboard date and time.

Okay I have done this. There were no changes whatsoever.

[shadowsports]

Steve,
Do you have another CPU you can test with?    If not we understand, as most of us don't have $300-$500 casually laying around. 

[steve1316]

Steve,
Do you have another CPU you can test with?    If not we understand, as most of us don't have $300-$500 casually laying around.

No I really don't. I just want to try everything I can to determine which component failed on me so I can replace it with a cheap one.

[shadowsports]

Man    sorry to say but you are running out of options.  No luck bench testing, reseating, removing connect devices.  You've attempted CLR_CMOS with button and manually.  You've tried to force boot from alternate BIOS.

When you get a flashing cursor with devices connected (like you have) it can be several things.  software issue on disks, failed device detection, hardware failure, corrupt BIOS.

When you don't get POST and nothing is attached, it's always BIOS or MB hardware related.  Sometimes clearing the BIOS (bad OC, etc) can be fixed in this manner.  But when nothing or only the bare minimum is there (what you need to boot) and everything else has been tried, your problem can be unrecoverable.  Its pretty hard to believe that after a battery pull and clearing the CMOS you still can POST from either BIOS.  I didn't like hearing that your CPU fan no longer spins.

Before throwing in the towel, what about keyboard and mouse?  Are these USB, wireless...  have you tried moving the connections to different ports?

Beyond this I'm out of ideas for you. Maybe others have some additional thoughts.

[steve1316]

Man    sorry to say but you are running out of options.  No luck bench testing, reseating, removing connect devices.  You've attempted CLR_CMOS with button and manually.  You've tried to force boot from alternate BIOS.

When you get a flashing cursor with devices connected (like you have) it can be several things.  software issue on disks, failed device detection, hardware failure, corrupt BIOS.

When you don't get POST and nothing is attached, it's always BIOS or MB hardware related.  Sometimes clearing the BIOS (bad OC, etc) can be fixed in this manner.  But when nothing or only the bare minimum is there (what you need to boot) and everything else has been tried, your problem can be unrecoverable.  Its pretty hard to believe that after a battery pull and clearing the CMOS you still can POST from either BIOS.  I didn't like hearing that your CPU fan no longer spins.

Before throwing in the towel, what about keyboard and mouse?  Are these USB, wireless...  have you tried moving the connections to different ports?

Beyond this I'm out of ideas for you. Maybe others have some additional thoughts.

Yeah, they are both USB and I have tried plugging them in at different ports. I'm planning to take it to a repair shop soon to get their opinion on this. Thanks for your help everyone!