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BIOS battery flame out indicators

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by shpl

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What are the early signs of the BIOS battery on the motherboard of the desktop or even a laptop nearing the end of its life ? . Please answer with direct personal experiences or anecdotal evidence of anybody else . What is the best and cheapest place on the net for buying BIOS batteries --whether of desktops , servers or notebooks ? .

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by thechas

Most new laptops do not use a battery to back up the configuration memory, they use a form of non-volatile RAM for this task.
The RTC is run off of the main battery.

On an ATX style desktop, you may never know that the CMOS backup battery has failed.
Most newer ATX motherboards use the 5 Volt standby line to backup the CMOS and run the clock.
The battery only comes into play when the AC power is fully removed from the power supply.

Usually, if the battery is in play, the first sign of a problem is loosing time when the PC is off.

My best sources for batteries are:

Hosfelt Electronics www.hosfelt.com

B. G. Micro www.bgmicro.com

Both regularly sell 2035 lithium coin cells for under $1.50

For older PCs that use ni-cadbatteries, you might give Digi Key www.digikey.com a try.

Chas

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