Have you checked your button cell lately

[Emulator]

I started to get erratic, computer behavior recently, particularly upon start up, being forced into BIOS, loosing password etc.

After many speculative tests, I discovered that the button cell on the mother board had dropped in voltage to 2.2 volts. Replacement of the cell with a voltage of 3.2 volts, cured all the problems.

 

[PeterBJ]

How long did the failed cell last?

 

[Emulator]

I guess about 5 years.

 

[The Hat]

Mine is a lot older, but now you got me thinking...

 

[CakeHole]

Additional useful info for this problem...

1. The first sign the battery needs replacing is normally the time and or date will be incorrect. Or be incorrect on some restarts (NOT always the case but typically the first sign)

2. If you have lots of startup tasks (examples... Checking Java, Flash etc for updates) Or lots of Task Scheduler related things set the system may crash (again related to time/date, but in this instance the time/date can appear to be correct, only the computer has checked/done your tasks on a boot up when the time or date was not correct, leading to your computer being confused why you have travelled back/forward in time when it checks the startup tasks).

3. Battery info... The most common size/name in a computer is a CR2032 battery. Typical CMOS/BIOS battery life is 5 years, HOWEVER this can be significantly less if you have a cheap/unknown brand battery installed. I recommend NOT to use cheap batteries from pound land (dollar store for the US readers). They are often brought from a large warehouse and have been sitting around for considerable time, sometimes years (if you can find the expiry date on the package take a look and ensure it has at least 2 years to run, anything less, especially considerably less and the battery has been sitting around for a while).

The best brands in my personal experience are Duracell and Panasonic (they can and do last upto 8 years).
Other brands which should last you 3-6 years are Maxell and Energizer.
Poorer brands such as Kodak and Polaroid which you would think are good are not (Kodak just sell the rights to others to slap their name on the package and Polaroid as you most likely know them IE Polaroid Corporation went Bankrupt 20+ Years ago which has led to other organisations using the same name and some other organisation owns the original logo).


Tips BEFORE you change the battery

1. Enter your Bios and make a note of any settings you have at some stage altered (Typically this will be boot sequence of drives, Bios passwords, Overclock settings etc). DO this before you rip the battery out cos once you do the BIOS will go back to its defaults.

2. When you have replaced the battery do NOT go straight into your bios altering things back to how you had them.... If the new battery turns out to be a dud you will have wasted your time. Set the bare minimum you have to (like boot sequence of drives, time and date) and run your computer for 24 hours or at least with a few restarts to check issues have gone away. If all seems solved then you can go through your bios and set everything back to how you had it.

3. If you have a small tip/fine line marker men, write on top of the battery the date you replaced it, that way in future if you have issues which could be battery related you will know instantly how long the battery has been in your machine and if it is the likely issue to the problems.

4. Try not (Impossible i know for some) to regularly restart or power the computer on and off. The bios battery typically only saves and recalls settings for any changes in your bios and keeps track of the time and date. Multiple power ons means this information has to be accessed and like any battery the more you use it the less time it lasts.
Obviously YES before you ask typically all the time the computer is powered on or off the battery is in use, BUT its not using as many volts. On start up it can use beyond its 3V rating (sometimes as much as 3.5V) after that it will settle and use between 3.0-3.3V. I know it does not sound much but over the years an extra quarter to half a volt use here and there can make a big difference in terms of life span. (Now you know why any server or NAS box you may have which is always left on never seems to need a new battery)

Hope this is of some use to people.

 

[stratman]

write on top of the battery the date you replaced it

Great tip!

Good post. Only tip #4 do I generally not agree with due to memory leak issues that can slow things down when people keep the computer on for days and days, and, also using electricity when you do not have to. Additionally, in today's age of hacking... why leave yourself vulnerable more than you need to by keeping your machine on while not used for extended periods of time. Batteries are cheap. Ransomware or compromised personal data and financial accounts may not be.

Duracell for the win.

 

[CakeHole]

Yeah, tip 4 is more aimed at those that either have a machine which is on for long periods and you may as well leave on all the time (Server, NAS box etc) or those that shut the computer down when you are just nipping to the toilet or to make a cup of tea and there is no real need to shutdown. I personally know someone who shuts their computer down each time they leave the room, they will even shut it down if they are just going to get a pen to note something down which is on screen (quite how he thinks that is saving his personal energy or the electricity in any significance when he is gone for all of 60 seconds and will have to reboot and re-find what he had on screen i dunno).

I would not advise people who may only use their computer for an hour or so here and there to leave it on all the time, that as you correctly state would be excess electricity use.

Its more common sense than anything, or at least a think first approach.

Batteries are indeed cheap, replacing them though is not always painless... Ive seen desktop computers with the battery on the back of the motherboard, which means basically dismantling the whole machine (motherboard out job) to replace it, likewise some laptops, require a fair bit of teardown to get to the battery. Again a toss up in those cases make the battery POTENTIALLY last longer but spend a bit more electricity wise doing so or get use to taking your machine apart, catch 22 situation

Glad you liked the write the date on the battery tip even though somehow i called it a "marker men" rather than "marker pen" dunno how or why the heck that happened lol

 

[stratman]

I personally know someone who shuts their computer down each time they leave the room, they will even shut it down if they are just going to get a pen to note something down which is on screen

I know I shouldn't laugh but I did. Out loud.

The battery date marking is a terrific tip that I've never heard or read elsewhere. Will do. Thanks!

 

[CakeHole]

I know I shouldn't laugh but I did. Out loud.

Don't worry i was rude also. At first i was just confused so asked why he shutdown the computer, when he explained to save energy i think my response was something along the lines of "What the hell, do you think you are Captain Planet?".

The battery date marking is a terrific tip that I've never heard or read elsewhere. Will do. Thanks!

One of those old tips us older buggers practice I many years ago worked for a large company with more than a few rack-mount servers and client machines. Any hardware that was replaced we wrote the date on or if you could not write the date directly on it you put a tag on it with replacement date and other information. May Sound like overkill, but it helps you to quickly identify what part may be failing, can be a right time saver when every minute you are down you have some boss freaking out that does not understand technology .

We would write dates and other info on the likes of RAM (use a small white sticker) and HDDs (write on the drive casing rather than the printed label see you can wipe it off if needed, eg for warranty return). So if those reading ever replace or upgrade RAM, HDDs and other items, you can put the date etc info on them also if you need to. HOWEVER look closely first... items like HDDs normally have a manufacture date on them nowadays which if you are buying relatively new stock the date is likely to be within a couple of months of when you install it anyway so the practice has died out a bit. Us oldies still practice it as its easier to read a date you wrote on an item than staring at tiny print on an items label trying to find it.