19 replies to this topic

[Wakers]

I also thought I'd test out what Budman was saying about the CMOS not being required to boot if it's plugged into the wall socket - I guess it depends on the motherboard, because it would absolutely not boot without any battery in. Didn't even get any beeps out of it. This isn't even a budget motherboard, it's a solid mid-range one too.

Half a second of a fan whirring and then dead.

[+BudMan]

So your 2 month old MB cmos battery was low on charge? that the working theory? Because if it was dead, then it wouldn't keep time when not connected to wall power. And now you say it doesn't boot at all with battery out? Guess that is possible that is not making a connection that needs to be made - even if there is no juice in it, etc. Modern day computers do not require it to store bios settings -- see below link

http://en.wikipedia....ile_BIOS_memory

Well I can state that in the 30+ years I have been playing with computers I have never seen such a thing - ever.

Glad you got it sorted - but It makes no sense that a 2 month old battery would be bad. And since your saying bios kept time when removed from wall power, how does that make any sense that it did not have charge?

[Wakers]

It obviously had some charge because it would allow the computer to boot. I say it appeared to be in low charge because the time in the BIOS did not update once the PC had been turned on. It was stuck. Add to that the failure to boot, and not being able to find the SSD it was obviously required for quite a lot of information. The mobo is an ASRocks Extreme 4M (z77 chipset), a model that I do not believe has even been available for two years. I bought it two months ago. I can only assume that it's a one in a few thousand case of being a dud battery.

And fwiw, as soon as I put the new battery in I had to reset all of my BIOS settings. It even states in the mobo manual that this is necessary once a new battery has been installed - however I did not clear the CMOS itself.

I did an experiment seeing as I had some time this evening, I put the old battery back in. All of the symptoms come back. The bios clock was stuck (albeit this time at 00:10:00) the bios settings were all back to defaults, the computer would not boot without being told to boot from the SSD and my wireless adapter had to plugged and unplugged several times before working.

So.. CMOS batters are more important than they may appear!

[+BudMan]

Well there is always something new to experience - again glad you got it sorted. Clearly your MB maker is using it for more than what they are normally used for in the modern age.

Must of been bad from the getgo if your MB is only 2 months old - they should last 2 to 10 years from everything I have read. And in the 30+ years I have been playing/working with computers I can count on 1 hand the times I have had to replace them. So 2 years is on the very low bad range that is for sure, I would say more like 5 to 10, with closer to 10 being the norm

So you can slap my ass and call me sally on this one

[Wakers]

I've been working with computers for about ten years now, and that's only the second time I've had to replace one. The first time was on an old Pentium 2 machine that actually gave blue screens with a CMOS error. The machine was seven years old at that point.

This is the first time I've ever had to replace a battery on one of my personal machines. I do seem to have the most terrible luck with my own machines, I get all sorts of stupid stuff happening.

I've had to RMA parts, I've had a GPU that started smoking within two minutes of it being in a machine. I've had an AMD 965 BE that decided it would somehow manage to burn itself and the motherboard despite having a working heatsink and an adequate covering of thermal paste.

I've had a transistor pop on a £300 motherboard a month after warrenty ended.

And I build all these machines for people who have no idea what they're doing and none of them have any hardware problems!