Laptop is fine, then suddenly a BIOS Application ERROR! PLEASE HELP!

Hey everyone, greetings! Everything was working perfectly fine with my HP laptop until yesterday—but today, I turned it on and ran straight into a wall.

I got hit with this message:

The Dell BIOS application selected is corrupt or missing. Please install the application and try again.

BIOS Application ERROR (501)

ENTER- Continue

And look—when I hit Enter, Windows boots up just fine and I can go about my business. I tried restarting it, but nope—same exact error every single time. I haven't even touched the BIOS settings! The only thing I did was swap out the power adapter—which shouldn't matter, right? I have no clue why this is happening. I haven't deleted any programs or files, so I'm completely lost here. Maybe the CMOS battery died and needs a swap? I don't know the first thing about that stuff, so I'm hoping you guys can help me out.

LAPTOP SPECS:

Windows 8.1 Pro
CPU: INTEL CORE i5-2430 M CPU @2,40 GHz
RAM : 6,00 GB
64-BIT OS

Are you running a legacy BIOS or UEFI?

Try resetting your BIOS settings back to factory defaults. Just shut it down completely, then power it back up.

If that doesn't cut it, pull the battery and the power adapter, then do a full hard reset on the laptop (just hold that power button down for a solid 30 seconds). Pop the battery and charger back in, let it juice up for maybe two or three hours before you try turning it on again.

Now, if you’re still stuck, you’ve got the option to reset the CMOS directly on the battery itself.


And hey, if all else fails, maybe give the BIOS firmware an upgrade.

I pulled the battery and the power adapter, let the laptop sit for a full minute, and did a hard reset—now the error is finally gone.

Your CMOS probably took a massive hit while you were swapping out that battery.