Here's a funny one

[mickw]

I have a fairly old pc that rarely gets used.

Over the last couple of days I've tried turning it on (turning power on also) and it just sits there doing nothing except for an led on the network card and an unknown one on the motherboard - no fans, no hard drive, no monitor, nothing.
If I just ignore it, after about 4 hours, it boots to the bios boot screen and I get a "cmos checksum error - default loading" message then "press f1 or enter bios".

I've tried it a couple of times with the same outcome.  The first time I set the date and time in bios but it's not changing.

Does this sound like it's just the CMOS battery gone flat ?

[Ian]

yes, and check for blown capacitors too...

[mickw]

Cured - new battery.

Still turns on as soon as I plug it in rather than on the button, but that's not a problem

[Ian]

That turning on thing is a setting on some bios. Suppose it was a remote server?

[mickw]

That turning on thing is a setting on some bios. Suppose it was a remote server?

I'll check the bios later - I did have a bit of a tinker 
If I knew how to set up a server, that's probably what I would have used it for, but not at the moment.