Battery running low?

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wayne clarke
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My windoze (yep) mains powered PC is telling me the battery is low. Now I'm told theres a battery for the Bios. Having had one of these die in a previous PC which appeared to kill it I'm getting worried. I'm told it's not just a case of swopping the batter you have to reset the bios. What and how is that done? Is it beyond an old git like me. I'm not totally clueless, I swop out drives and install stuff. But this is new to me.
 
Google it.
It's fairly straightforward.
I replaced a battery a few years ago without issues.
 
Have you made any bios changes? If not then it is as simple as get the correct battery and replace. They are similar to CR2025 but check the number on your one before you order.
 
My windoze (yep) mains powered PC is telling me the battery is low. Now I'm told theres a battery for the Bios. Having had one of these die in a previous PC which appeared to kill it I'm getting worried. I'm told it's not just a case of swopping the batter you have to reset the bios. What and how is that done? Is it beyond an old git like me. I'm not totally clueless, I swop out drives and install stuff. But this is new to me.

Can you tell us the make & model number plus if you already know the motherboard make and model??

Are you getting a BIOS warning during boot or once Windows (which version?) has launched?

PS FWIW my home built PC is now a significant number of years old and I have to experience any CMOS battery issues or warnings? Your post is a timely reminder for me as my Gigabyte motherboard is Dual BIOS and as I have in the past altered the BIOS settings I need to make sure I have copied the primary BIOS to the secondary which is designed to act as a backup, as far as I recall, in the case of BIOS failure including battery failure?
 
I've changed at least 200 over the last 20 years...
CMOS batteries are much better now - well the batts are the same just the power management is much better & so its rare I need to change them.
They are usually pretty easy to do.
 
I'm told it's not just a case of swopping the batter you have to reset the bios. What and how is that done? Is it beyond an old git like me. I'm not totally clueless, I swop out drives and install stuff. But this is new to me.
You can swop out the battery with some impunity but I vaguely remember that you're allowed a certain timespan to complete the operation before the bios loses its memory. So you have to be fairly brisk about it - stressful if you've never done it before. But don't panic - the bios stuff is no huge deal - it's like an app that you can wander about in.

Have the right battery to hand. Don't get the old and the new mixed up. Cultivate calmness, and concentrate.

The crucial bit is that as ever when manually interfacing with the mainboard and anything attached to it, be conscious of the risk that invisible static charge from your hands can destroy a microcircuit before you can blink.

What I do (and it might be half sense, half superstition) is this - keep the computer plugged into the mains, but with the wall socket switch off. This cuts the live but should maintain an earth connection. Take off watches, etc, and wear cotton / wool rather than polyester / nylon. If it's a desktop pc, have it on its side with the casing removed. Then to do the deed, I lean into the casing, resting my bare forearms on the metal computer framing, to earth myself through it. And don't touch anything on the mainboard etc that you don't need to touch.
 
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Super easy, take the old battery out and put in a new one.

Better to touch a radiator before you touch the mobo though.
 
I would also add if you have never touched the bios then it should be set to default, meaning even if the bios does reset whilst changing the battery it will only reset again to the default settings.
 
I'll have to look up the model. It's running win 7.0. I'm just off to a job now. Thanks for the replies. I'll be back tomorrow as it's a late finish.
Many thanks.
 
Last year I started getting problems on Boot-up including the keyboard not being recognised etc. A friend recognised the symptoms and suggested the battery on the Mother Board. I should have thought of it myself but the PC was only 5 years old. Before swapping the battery, I first confirmed the required type from the Mother board handbook. Then I found a UTube video describing how to do this. This was more for re-assurance but was helpful. After the battery swap all the issues went away and there was no need to reset or alter the bios settings which remained intact. At the same time, I took the opportunity to clean the inside particularly ensuring that all of the fans were running well (three in my PC).

Dave
 
It's a dell XPS 710. Cant find a serial number without pulling it out and that'll knock the power off. What I have found is the full instruction manual which amazingly tells me how to change the battery. It tells me to record the boot up screen and just enter those details after changing the battery (in more detail) What worries me though is when my other one went it wouldn't boot up at all, power on and ... nothing. It's still dead. Two techs have had a look and I'm none the wiser.
Right now to buy a battery....
 
I would say the one that wont boot up has a problem other than a dead cmos battery, i cant think of an instance where a dead cmos battery would stop a computer from booting, it just stores info on bios settings.
 
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