Battery alarm question

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dudley Henriques
  • Start date Start date
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Dudley Henriques

I have a normal XP Home running on my system and would like to set a low
battery warning in power options.
In Help, it says I should have an alarm tab but none is there. Can someone
help me with a solution to this please? Is there a windows tool I need to
load to access this tab?
Thank you very much
Dudley
 
I have a Hypersonic Sonic Boom. It's a Pen4 3.0 w/HT. Ram is 1024DDR, board
is an Asus P4C800-E deluxe
Is this a BIOS setting by chance?
Thanks
Dudley
 
Hi Jerry;
I've been doing some research since posting and I think you're right. Home
edition on a desktop doesn't have the battery warning.
If I can change the question a bit?
Is there any way at all on an XP desktop to know when its time to change the
battery? Mine's been in there for about 3 years now and everything seems
normal at this point but I don't want to wait until the system goes down on
me before I change the battery.
Considering this, is there a way to change the battery without losing the
CMOS settings? I'm not even sure if I'd lose the BIOS settings.
In short, what's the optimum way for the average user like me to handle the
whole battery thing? :-)
Thanks much
Dudley
 
Dudley Henriques said:
Hi Jerry;
I've been doing some research since posting and I think you're right. Home
edition on a desktop doesn't have the battery warning.
If I can change the question a bit?
Is there any way at all on an XP desktop to know when its time to change
the battery? Mine's been in there for about 3 years now and everything
seems normal at this point but I don't want to wait until the system goes
down on me before I change the battery.
Considering this, is there a way to change the battery without losing the
CMOS settings? I'm not even sure if I'd lose the BIOS settings.
In short, what's the optimum way for the average user like me to handle
the whole battery thing? :-)
Thanks much
Dudley
Click to expand...


There is not indication that the motherboard battery is getting low until
the computer starts losing the time setting when turned off. At the same
time the BIOS settings will return to their default settings. I don't know
of any way to change the battery without having to reset the BIOS.

Well, I guess I can, but I'd be afraid to try changing the battery with the
machine turned on or bypassing the normal wiring by adding wiring to connect
to two batteries at once. Not worth the trouble anyway.

I used to have a nice little program to print out the BIOS settings, but
that was lost long ago when as hard drive failed and I hadn't backed it up.
Only once in 26 years have I had to replace a motherboard battery.
 
Dudley said:
Hi Jerry;
I've been doing some research since posting and I think you're right.
Home edition on a desktop doesn't have the battery warning.
If I can change the question a bit?
Is there any way at all on an XP desktop to know when its time to
change the battery? Mine's been in there for about 3 years now and
everything seems normal at this point but I don't want to wait until
the system goes down on me before I change the battery.
Click to expand...


You're talking about the CMOS battery? I think most people assumed you were
talking about the big battery on a laptop until you clarified this.

The way to know it's time to change the battery is when the computer starts
losing time while powered off. There's no way for Windows XP itself to know;
Windows doesn't even use the battery.

Batteries usually last 3-5 years, but there's a lot of variability.

Considering this, is there a way to change the battery without losing
the CMOS settings? I'm not even sure if I'd lose the BIOS settings.
Click to expand...


Lest there be any confusion here, the "BIOS settings" is just an informal,
slightly incorrect name for the CMOS settings. They are the same thing.

There's nothing that especially needs to done, except to do it quickly. You
normally have ten to fifteen minutes or so, and I've seen it as long as an
hour or more on some computers.
However, my personal view is that nobody should ever be in a position of
having to rely on this. I recommend that everyone make and keep handy a hard
copy of his BIOS settings, just in case, even if you are not planning on
replacing the battery any time soon.

In short, what's the optimum way for the average user like me to
handle the whole battery thing? :-)
Click to expand...


Make a hard copy backup as I suggest above, and then don't worry about it.
Replace the battery when it starts losing the ability to maintain the time,
and just do it quickly. Worst case, you can always copy back the settings
from your hard copy.
 
Thanks Ken. I've been trying to research a way to get a hard copy of the
BIOS settings. I think I understand the options are quite limited; either
print out each screen (actually my Laserjet USB might not be able to do even
this) by rebooting back into the CMOS settings for each screen, or hand copy
every screen and sub screen. One suggestion was to take a photograph of each
screen with a camera :-)
I had even hoped that Asus might have some kind of a template that shows a
basic BIOS
screen for each tab with the selections left blank so that you could just
jot down each setting instead of writing out the entire screen in long hand,
but they don't seem to have this.
I guess I have one thing going for me. When Hypersonic set up my BIOS, I
believe, since I don't use RAID and have not overclocked anything, that the
setup I have is probably the default anyway, so that if I did have to reset
it, picking the default before exit would probably be the same as its
configured now.
To my knowledge, the only change is to disable the Promise controller which
I can remember to do on a reset.
So if I understand correctly, what I need to do is watch for the clock to be
off on the initial boot of the day and noticing that, simply replace the
battery, doing it as quickly as possible. If I do lose the CMOS settings,
just go into the BIOS and reselect the defaults?
Dudley
 
I would agree absolutely with you that although no line current should be
present outside the PSU, the dangers involved by working the mobo, even at
the 5v level are there and this shouldn't be done. Even if one managed to
make the switch without getting fried by the line current, the danger of
shorting the board could ruin your whole day :-)
So I guess I watch the clock, then make the switch when needed as quickly as
possible, observing normal safety rules. Then just reset the BIOS which
should be default anyway since nothing has really been tweaked when the
system was first set up.
Dudley
 
You're talking about the CMOS battery? I think most people assumed you were
talking about the big battery on a laptop until you clarified this.

The way to know it's time to change the battery is when the computer starts
losing time while powered off. There's no way for Windows XP itself to know;
Windows doesn't even use the battery.

Batteries usually last 3-5 years, but there's a lot of variability.




Lest there be any confusion here, the "BIOS settings" is just an informal,
slightly incorrect name for the CMOS settings. They are the same thing.

There's nothing that especially needs to done, except to do it quickly. You
normally have ten to fifteen minutes or so, and I've seen it as long as an
hour or more on some computers.
However, my personal view is that nobody should ever be in a position of
having to rely on this. I recommend that everyone make and keep handy a hard
copy of his BIOS settings, just in case, even if you are not planning on
replacing the battery any time soon.
Click to expand...

Hi Ken,

How do you make and keep a hard copy of the BIOS settings? Thank you.

Gail
 
Dudley said:
Thanks Ken.
Click to expand...


You're welcome. Glad to help.

I've been trying to research a way to get a hard copy of
the BIOS settings. I think I understand the options are quite
limited; either print out each screen (actually my Laserjet USB might
not be able to do even this)
Click to expand...


You normally need a parallel printer for it to work before Windows is
started.

by rebooting back into the CMOS settings
for each screen, or hand copy every screen and sub screen. One
suggestion was to take a photograph of each screen with a camera :-)
Click to expand...


A camera is often suggested. Personally, I just hand-copy the screens.
There's not that much data that it takes very long. In fact, if you've been
researching this, you've probably already spent more time than it would have
taken to hand-copy it.

I had even hoped that Asus might have some kind of a template that
shows a basic BIOS
screen for each tab with the selections left blank so that you could
just jot down each setting instead of writing out the entire screen
in long hand, but they don't seem to have this.
I guess I have one thing going for me. When Hypersonic set up my
BIOS, I believe, since I don't use RAID and have not overclocked
anything, that the setup I have is probably the default anyway, so
that if I did have to reset it, picking the default before exit would
probably be the same as its configured now.
To my knowledge, the only change is to disable the Promise controller
which I can remember to do on a reset.
So if I understand correctly, what I need to do is watch for the
clock to be off on the initial boot of the day and noticing that,
simply replace the battery, doing it as quickly as possible. If I do
lose the CMOS settings, just go into the BIOS and reselect the
defaults?
Click to expand...


That's what I would do, except I'd work from my hard copy, and not use the
defaults.
 
Jyeshta said:
Hi Ken,

How do you make and keep a hard copy of the BIOS settings? Thank you.
Click to expand...


See the message I just sent in this thread to Dudley. If you have a parallel
printer, you can usually print the screens with PrintScrn. If not, either
photograph the screens or hand copy them. I hand copy them.
 
You're welcome. Glad to help.




You normally need a parallel printer for it to work before Windows is
started.




A camera is often suggested. Personally, I just hand-copy the screens.
There's not that much data that it takes very long. In fact, if you've been
researching this, you've probably already spent more time than it would have
taken to hand-copy it.
Click to expand...

Hi again, Ken,

How do you access the screens? Thank you!

Gail
 
Jyeshta said:
Hi again, Ken,

How do you access the screens? Thank you!
Click to expand...

How to get into your BIOS depends, not on Windows, but on what
motherboard/BIOS you have. As a matter of fact, you have to access the BIOS
before Windows even starts to boot. One common way is to press the Del key
when you first power on, but that's not necessarily right for your computer.
Watch the screen carefully when you first boot; there's often a message
there telling you what to do. If not, check your system documentation or
check with your vendor.

Also look here: http://michaelstevenstech.com/bios_manufacturer.htm
 
How to get into your BIOS depends, not on Windows, but on what
motherboard/BIOS you have. As a matter of fact, you have to access the BIOS
before Windows even starts to boot. One common way is to press the Del key
when you first power on, but that's not necessarily right for your computer.
Watch the screen carefully when you first boot; there's often a message
there telling you what to do. If not, check your system documentation or
check with your vendor.

Also look here: http://michaelstevenstech.com/bios_manufacturer.htm
Click to expand...

Thank you, Ken. You are so kind to keep answering all my newbie
questions!

Gail
 
Jyeshta said:
Thank you, Ken. You are so kind to keep answering all my newbie
questions!
Click to expand...


You're welcome, Gail. Glad to help. This is, after all, a new users
newsgroup.
 
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