CMOS Errors errors and No Boot

Working on a friends machine she dropped off. I know this was working fine just a week or so back.

Machine is a Systemax Venture U24, Intel Mobo, 1M Ram, running XP Home Edition.

First off when I plug the power chord in, it powers right up without hitting power switch (thats bothersome in itself ). It then displays:

CMOS/GPNV Checksum Bad
CMOS Date time not set
Hit F4 to enter setup

In setup, the time is indeed way off.. set this back to normal and try boot. I get as far as seeing the desktop and icons, AVG Updater starts to display, goes to a big white box and reboots back to the CMOS error. CMOS the again displays wrong date/time. Cycle will just rinse and repeat.

Steps I have done:
- Replaced CMOS battery
- Tried loading "default CMOS Settings"
to no avail.

Googled this to death and have seen everything from reflashing the Bios to a bad power supply. Wanted to get any advice here before I venture down these paths.

As always appreciate the help/advice.

 

Check the battery, remove and reinstall, and try another if necessary. AVG updater is a PITA IMHO, especially on older systems. Can you start in safe mode tap F8 while booting? If the battery is good and set properly it sounds like AVG is the possible fly in the ointment, although how it could be is a mystery to me. Replaced a CMOS battery on our older computer recently, updated time in taskbar with a double click on the clock and reset a few BIOS settings for booting, that was it.

 

well I got past the CMOS errors with the 2nd battery replacement. Was able to boot up in safe mode. went into MSCONFIG and disabled all AVG apps on start-up (basically disabled all startup apps). rebooted in normal mode, made it all the way to the desktop and then it goes into a constant reboot.

Now when I try and boot via safe mode, it hangs at agpcpq.sys, which by googling found this is the AGP video controler. I am leaning towards a bias flash but it is a relatively new machine so I dont really think the bios is out of date but maybe corrupted from the dead batteries ??

 

Well I can boot into safe mode now.. still investigationg