It used to be that not long ago, we all went out and bought a computer, then within a year or so, we saw a bigger, better, and faster one, and likely far cheaper than what we paid for our first! So many went out and bought it. I did that 3 times before I finally got one that I am perfectly happy with. What I'm trying to say is that most people didn't hang onto their first computer for very long, so the CMOS battery was never an issue, they didn't keep it long enough for the lithium battery to drain down. BUT, now we may keep a computer for a number of years, and in that case... it IS an issue. For sure, if your computer's time has been gradually getting slower, you ought to carry on reading this article. Don't be worrying though, its not gonna crash for a while yet, just the same as any battery, it's not going to suddenly be run down, it's not like an on/off switch, you'll have plenty of warning, months in fact. Another symptom is if you are getting BIOS error messages at boot-up
At some point, its inevitable that your CMOS Battery will fail. They generally last 3-5 years, but just the same as a new car, it can break down the first year. And this is why you need to understand its function somewhat if you're to have any chance at recovering from the effects of a run down battery.
To make sure your battery is at fault, enter your BIOS settings and find the spot where you set the time, (Be VERY careful in BIOS), and set the time to another clock, save the settings and exit. Now, the next day, go back to your BIOS again, and check the time against the clock you previously set it to, and if it's off by more than a minute already, i'm afraid it's dieing my friend. Another way is to check the battery's voltage, it must be 2.5volts or more. But if you didn't lose time in this test, then your battery is fine and the slow running OS clock is the culprit. To determine this: If you KNOW your computer time is off, shut down your system for at least 2 minutes then reboot, if the computer's time has reset itself to the correct time, your OS clock is at fault.
CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor) is a small lithium battery powered, RAM (Random Access) chip mounted on your Motherboard and contains your computers clock and calendar as well as a small amount of memory used for basic configuration information, like the number and sizes of drives installed as well as your BIOS password (if one is used). In fact when you first switch on your computer, this is the chip you are accessing.
And so it goes that if you clear CMOS you will lose everything, including BIOS settings and computer time. On newer machines BIOS interrogates your hard drive to get its Geometry settings, although you will need to manually enter the date and time. But on older systems you need to enter all the settings into BIOS manually. First you need to know them though. You really ought to go into BIOS and copy your BIOS features settings if your computer is more than a few years old, and copy to paper your settings and store in a safe place. You may be patting yourself on the back one day for doing so.
Here's why you are headed for a date with destiny. Did you notice the keyword at the start of this file? Battery. Even though its a lithium battery, its still a battery, just like a monkey is still a monkey! (There's a hidden message there if you can catch it.) And batteries always run down! In this case though, losing battery power on your CMOS chip is tantamount to destruction in some cases, because if you lose CMOS memory you lose everything, (you can remove a healthy CMOS battery and set it aside for a while, reinstall it, boot up and you will have wiped out all your data.) By the way, if you find your computer is constantly losing time, or its erratic, your CMOS battery is likely running down, and when it runs down enough, you will lose CMOS memory. Most older computers won't even boot at all if this is lost! As mentioned, this is not such a big loss on newer machines, because BIOS will find its own settings by interrogation. So it is vital you write down the BIOS settings of older computers.
If it ever comes to this for you, be very careful what you input for your settings, for example, if you have a computer with 8.4 GB but you only input 4.1 GB, your computer will only be a 4.1 GB computer. even though there's more capability!
Just one more thing... if you can change a battery in a wrist watch, you can change your own computer battery, you do not need a technician, or to take your computer to the repair shop just so you can get 'soaked'.
Go here to view another file I wrote relating to this subject and see what I had to do once when my computer just would not boot up. I couldn't even use a floppy to transfer system files!
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