How long does a computer battery last?

[Heretic Apostate]

I bought my computer August of 2000. It's less than 3 years old. Trouble is, the clock is losing time. In the last 24 hours, it lost 7 minutes. I'd expect a loss of maybe 2-3 minutes per year, but 7-10 minutes per day is ridiculous...

I'm guessing that my battery is dying. What are the consequences? Will it affect the stuff on the hard drive, or will it just affect the clock?

 

[orbitalfreak]

I had a similar problem with my Feb '02 XP machine, it was messing up its clock a lot. I would lose hours, even days!, over the course of a week. I was wondering what the problem was, since I had it synchronized with NIST on-line.

Well, I turned off the internet synchronization, set it manually, and it hasn't lost anything noticeable in months.

So, if you have synchronization on, try turning it on; If it's off, turn it on if you have it (I figure it can't hurt nothing ).

In XP, it's
Right-click on clock -> Adjust Date/Time -> Internet Time (tab) -> Automatically Synchronize with an Internet Time server (checkbox). I (had) set mine to http://nist.time.gov.

Hope this helps.

 

[jdavis]

If it is the battery on the motherboard then it's just a $2 watch battery. I'd check the sync and I'd check for a virus or trojan too.

 

[Heretic Apostate]

I'm on WinME, if that makes any difference. (I don't go for the latest Windows until it's been out for a couple years... Saves all the initial troubles, I think.) None of that Internet Synch on my clock.

Does the clock make much of a difference? So far, all it's cost me is a couple auctions on eBay (when my clock said I had about seven minutes left, but the auction ended already) and missing the start of a couple TV shows. Will it affect my computer?

(Basically, I don't want to have to open up my computer unless I have to. I've already had to re-install Windows a dozen time in the last year, and take it into the service center twice. I don't want to do any of THAT again...)

 

[jdavis]

I'm pretty sure ME will sync up the clock with the internet too.

As far as the battery is concerned it does more than just run a clock but I'm not sure what the effects of it being bad would be off the top of my head.

 

[MJEggertson]

In addition to time keeping, the main point of the battery is to keep a little area of the motherboard called the CMOS memory alive. When the power dies, the CMOS memory goes caput. Unfortunatley, the CMOS memory holds all those cryptic BIOS setting that keep your computer working from day to day.

A computer losing more than a minute a day probably means your battery is dying. You should replace it soon, since eventually, your computer will fail to start completely when the CMOS dies.

Be sure to record all your BIOS settings before you change your battery, since there's a good chance when you change the battery, all the BIOS information stored in the CMOS memory will be deleted. Check your user manual for the safety precautions you should take when changing the battery...

 

[Psionicist]

... since eventually, your computer will fail to start completely when the CMOS dies.

This is not true. Without a battery, the BIOS will load the default settings.

 

[MJEggertson]

True, and most computers nowadays have enough plug and play capabilities to load up in one way or another with the default settings. But a three year old computer on the other hand may not be bootable with the default settings. Some may, some may not...

 

[Heretic Apostate]

Mine's a Gateway, for what it's worth.

What type of stuff is in BIOS, anyway? (Hey, don't roll your eyes! At least I passed the "Hi! I'm on AOL! This internet stuff is cool!" stage years ago. )

 

[Hand of Evil]

Mine's a Gateway, for what it's worth.

What type of stuff is in BIOS, anyway? (Hey, don't roll your eyes! At least I passed the "Hi! I'm on AOL! This internet stuff is cool!" stage years ago. )

BIOS is an acronym for basic input/output system. The BIOS is built-in software that determines what a computer can do without accessing programs from a disk. On PCs, the BIOS contains all the code required to control the keyboard, display screen, disk drives, serial communications, and a number of miscellaneous functions.

The BIOS is typically placed on a ROM chip that comes with the computer (it is often called a ROM BIOS). This ensures that the BIOS will always be available and will not be damaged by disk failures. It also makes it possible for a computer to boot itself.

Because RAM is faster than ROM, many computer manufacturers design systems so that the BIOS is copied from ROM to RAM each time the computer is booted. This is known as shadowing, and should be disabled in the BIOS setup before flashing.

Most modern PCs have a flash BIOS, which means that the BIOS has been recorded on a rewriteable memory chip, which can be updated if necessary.

The PC BIOS is standardized, so all PCs are alike at this level (although there are different BIOS versions). Additional DOS functions are usually added through software modules. This means you can upgrade to a newer version of DOS without changing the BIOS.

PC BIOSes that can handle Plug-and-Play (PnP) devices are known as PnP BIOSes, or PnP-aware BIOSes. These BIOSes are always implemented with flash memory rather than ROM.