Forums > Help! > Laptop help... CMOS error, "the mup.sys hang"

Posted: 11th Jan 2006

Is this a recent problem or the result of hardware / software changes, I've had to deal with this problem on a number of machines over the last year for people, friends, clients etc.

In general and this may not relate to your scenario, but windows xp freezes at mup.sys (etc.) and, there tend to be many reason why this happens, seem to be related and a known problem(s) in Service Pack 2 for Win Xp,

So the initial question will be have you recently applied sp2,

Either way, more details please,

mark

Posted: 11th Jan 2006
Shout at it

Posted: 11th Jan 2006
Do you have an origional windows CD, or one from your laptop maker? If it's a dell (or whatever) 'system restore' CD then it's not much use, but with the windows CD you can repair a windows installation from the setup.

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees

Posted: 16th Jan 2006
Sorry guys, been away for a few days. I'd just like to say, the only way I found to resolve the issue was to remove the CMOS battery, leave it for 3 hours or so, then put it in again. This got everything working perfectly - except that I'd already attempted to reinstall windows, before reaching the same hang before it had setup!

If only I'd removed the battery first, my computer would be working fine. As it is, I may need to format my hard drive!

Oh well, I'm now able to burn CDs so making back-ups of all files.

I didn't have SP2, only SP1a (I don't connect to the net with it so haven't bothered updating). There was no change in hardware, but apparently the main point was that it was assigning ports which didn't exist to things... something like that.

If you have this problem, TAKE OUT THE BATTERY before you try any other way! It's simple and your computer should be back to normal with no side-effects.

Right, I'm off to replace my CMOS battery, just in case it does it again!

What a wonderful miracle if only we could look through each other's eyes for an instant.
Thoreau

Posted: 17th Jan 2006
The CMOS just stores setting to do with the hardware on the system - It could be that it lost some info about your drive, but ti's not a solve all problem for startup issues at all.

I'm glad you got it sorted though,

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees

Posted: 18th Jan 2006
Good point, my jubilation was only that this particular problem can easily be solved using my method... if I hadn't tried everything else first, my computer wouldn't be as funked as it is at the moment (although it's slowly recovering... it's a bit like it's had a stroke, certain things will never be quite the same again)

What a wonderful miracle if only we could look through each other's eyes for an instant.
Thoreau