Battery Life Expectancy

[Walter R.]

My computer is 5 years old. Should I replace the battery preemptively?

The Bios shows the battery voltage at the original 5 V.

 

[Rod Speed]

My computer is 5 years old. Should I replace the battery preemptively?

No real need, but then they dont cost much.

 

[kony]

My computer is 5 years old. Should I replace the battery preemptively?

If you want to, there's no rush but if you happened to be
ordering other parts from someplace that has 'em, or had an
occasion to be in your local drugstore's battery isle or
???, it's not an expensive part so if your preemptive
replacement results in buying a couple extra batteries over
your lifetime that could easily offset the inconvenience of
having to do it at a moment's notice later... though it
would also depend on how many years you expect to get out of
a board.

Since I have several systems I just buy a couple and leave
them in the package, till a system "asks" for one.

The Bios shows the battery voltage at the original 5 V.

Then it's reporting the wrong thing, practically all boards
from the past 10+ years use a CR2032 lithium coin cell,
which is a 3V, not 5V battery.

 

[Walter R.]

Will the system actually ask for a new battery when it no longer serves its
functions?

 

[Rod Speed]

Will the system actually ask for a new battery when it no longer serves its functions?

Nope, almost no systems do that.

 

[Mike Walsh]

You can tell when you need a new battery because the clock will lose its time or the BIOS will revert to default settings. You might also get a checksum error.

 

[kony]

Will the system actually ask for a new battery when it no longer serves its
functions?

Ask means it won't post or loses settings. Since I have a
multimeter or two or three it's quick and easy to check at
that point too just for confirmation but if you have the
spare battery you can just swap it in for a trial.