Bootup Issue

Hello all and thank you to those that take the time. Dell Inspiron 1526 Approximately 3 or 4 years old Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 AMD Turion 64 X2 Mobile Technology TL-60 2.00 GHz 4 GB RAM 32 bit OS I may not be in the right forum as this may be a hardware issue rather than an OS issue. I've had this boot up issue several times but only twice where the clock reset. I tried to boot up, it took a couple of tries. When I hit the button the screen is just blank. No splashpage or anything. After forcing it to restart a couple of times it finally booted up, twice the clock reset to 2009. Once the system boots (and I reset the clock if necessary) everything works perfectly. Any ideas? Thanks, Kevin

My best guess at this stage is you need a new CMOS battery, it certainly can't hurt, and they are cheap, and as that's what keeps the system time etc when turned off, it is highly suspect of being the cause of your issues, to start messing with anything else would not be wise, if this is the cause once rectified, all the other problems should disappear, by touching anything else before checking ,this out you could make things worse, so see what happens when you have done this, if you need advice of this procedure just let us know and we can walk you through it.

The battery you need is a CR2032, about the size of a quarter.

Since this is a laptop, replacing the battery is no simple task. You need to completely disassemble the laptop to get to it.

Follow the directions in the Service and Repair manual on the Dell web site. See Removing the Coin-Cell Battery.

Sorry I didn't recognise that system as being a laptop, it does make it a lot more difficult compared to a desktop, but the following link is the page you need from the above.
Removing the Coin-Cell Battery

Thanks folks. I'll give that a shot. When I do this, given that I've removed the power source for the CMOS, will I need to reset anything other than the clock? I haven't looked at those directions yet, but I imagine they'll tell me what I need to know in that regard.

No just the time and date, hope all goes well.

There is often a selection of Fn key you can press to "Restore default settings". I would do that then check the rest of the settings to make sure they are how you want them. For example: Boot order/priority Power button settings (what happens when you press the power button) Disable SATA/IDE ports not being used, speeds up boot a bit. Not necessary but good to look at any way.