Computer clock losing time

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bob
  • Start date Start date
B

Bob

I have had my A7V-333 for a few years and in the last couple of weeks my
computer clock has lost about 3 hours twice. Could this be caused by
something else besides the battery? Is the battery hard to change? Thanks in
advance.

Bob
 
I had a PC that had the same problem and it turned out to be a bad battery.

If you live in the USA you can buy PC batteries at a lot of stores. Best
Buy, Wal-Mart, Target, Sears, Home Depot, Office Depot, Office Max, Staples.
The last two I bought were at Best Buy. Cost about $4.99 for two.

Changing out your battery is a piece of cake. Will take about one minute.
Pop it out and pop in another one. The only negative is you will lose your
Bio's custom settings. Before you swap out the battery go into your Bio's
and write down your custom setting. After you swap out the battery go back
into the Bio's and reset.

This should fix your problem.

Good Luck.
 
Thank You.


Dan Spears said:
I had a PC that had the same problem and it turned out to be a bad battery.

If you live in the USA you can buy PC batteries at a lot of stores. Best
Buy, Wal-Mart, Target, Sears, Home Depot, Office Depot, Office Max,
Staples. The last two I bought were at Best Buy. Cost about $4.99 for two.

Changing out your battery is a piece of cake. Will take about one minute.
Pop it out and pop in another one. The only negative is you will lose your
Bio's custom settings. Before you swap out the battery go into your Bio's
and write down your custom setting. After you swap out the battery go back
into the Bio's and reset.

This should fix your problem.

Good Luck.
Click to expand...
 
Dan wrote on Sun, 14 Aug 2005 11:15:24 -0400:

DS> If you live in the USA you can buy PC batteries at a lot of
DS> stores. Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Target, Sears, Home Depot,
DS> Office Depot, Office Max, Staples. The last two I bought
DS> were at Best Buy. Cost about $4.99 for two.

DS> Changing out your battery is a piece of cake. Will take
DS> about one minute. Pop it out and pop in another one. The
DS> only negative is you will lose your Bio's custom settings.
DS> Before you swap out the battery go into your Bio's and
DS> write down your custom setting. After you swap out the
DS> battery go back into the Bio's and reset.

DS> This should fix your problem.

DS> Good Luck.

A remarkable coincidence: I was about to post the same question
myself having just observed the same symptoms in my 3-year old
computer. I don't know how long the mother board sat in the
store however before it was installed in the custom-built
machine. I also had been worrying about how much of the BIOS'
settings I would lose and your post is most encouraging. I don't
have any specs so do you know if there are several types of
battery or is one standard?

Thanks very much indeed

James Silverton.
 
James wrote to Dan Spears on Sun, 14 Aug 2005 14:04:58 -0400:
DS>> Changing out your battery is a piece of cake. Will take
DS>> about one minute. Pop it out and pop in another one. The
DS>> only negative is you will lose your Bio's custom settings.
DS>> Before you swap out the battery go into your Bio's and
DS>> write down your custom setting. After you swap out the
DS>> battery go back into the Bio's and reset.

DS>> This should fix your problem.

DS>> Good Luck.

JS> A remarkable coincidence: I was about to post the same
question
JS> myself having just observed the same symptoms in my 3-year
JS> old computer. I don't know how long the mother board sat in
JS> the store however before it was installed in the
JS> custom-built machine. I also had been worrying about how
JS> much of the BIOS' settings I would lose and your post is
JS> most encouraging. I don't have any specs so do you know if
JS> there are several types of battery or is one standard?

I realize that I am probably reinventing the wheel but I could
not find a utility that I trusted to record BIOS settings, Prt
Scr does not work during boot and writing them down is tedious.
I finally photographed the screens with a hand held digital
camera and printed the pictures on my laser printer. The results
were a little shaky but quite readable. I *know* I could have
done better with a tripod!

James Silverton.
 
"James Silverton" said:
James wrote to Dan Spears on Sun, 14 Aug 2005 14:04:58 -0400:
DS>> Changing out your battery is a piece of cake. Will take
DS>> about one minute. Pop it out and pop in another one. The
DS>> only negative is you will lose your Bio's custom settings.
DS>> Before you swap out the battery go into your Bio's and
DS>> write down your custom setting. After you swap out the
DS>> battery go back into the Bio's and reset.

DS>> This should fix your problem.

DS>> Good Luck.

JS> A remarkable coincidence: I was about to post the same
question
JS> myself having just observed the same symptoms in my 3-year
JS> old computer. I don't know how long the mother board sat in
JS> the store however before it was installed in the
JS> custom-built machine. I also had been worrying about how
JS> much of the BIOS' settings I would lose and your post is
JS> most encouraging. I don't have any specs so do you know if
JS> there are several types of battery or is one standard?

I realize that I am probably reinventing the wheel but I could
not find a utility that I trusted to record BIOS settings, Prt
Scr does not work during boot and writing them down is tedious.
I finally photographed the screens with a hand held digital
camera and printed the pictures on my laser printer. The results
were a little shaky but quite readable. I *know* I could have
done better with a tripod!

James Silverton.
Click to expand...

Changing the battery doesn't guarantee that you'll lose the
settings. I suggested that to someone, and they proved me
wrong. If you are quick, enough energy is stored in the board
to maintain the settings for a short time. Using CLRTC with
the battery out, would drain it real quick. Accidently shorting
the two battery terminals would also drain it quick. Unless you
drop the battery on the floor, I think the transition could be
quite smooth for you.

Don't forget to unplug the computer before working on it. From
an ESD perspective, it helps to have the PC at the same potential
as your body. Sitting the PC in your lap while working on it,
will make it easier to have some contact with the metal of the
case.

Paul
 
Changing the battery doesn't guarantee that you'll lose the
settings. I suggested that to someone, and they proved me
wrong. If you are quick, enough energy is stored in the board
to maintain the settings for a short time. Using CLRTC with
the battery out, would drain it real quick. Accidently shorting
the two battery terminals would also drain it quick. Unless you
drop the battery on the floor, I think the transition could be
quite smooth for you.

Don't forget to unplug the computer before working on it. From
an ESD perspective, it helps to have the PC at the same potential
as your body. Sitting the PC in your lap while working on it,
will make it easier to have some contact with the metal of the
case.

Paul
Click to expand...

Gee, to make sure I didn't lose settings, the last time I did it, I
performed the operation with the computer powered on. It went very
well, but just how stupid was I? Please try to go a little easy on
me.
Ron
 
Gee, to make sure I didn't lose settings, the last time I did it, I
performed the operation with the computer powered on. It went very
well, but just how stupid was I? Please try to go a little easy on
me.
Ron
Click to expand...

A conservative rule, is not to have any power on inside the
computer when working on it. It is to prevent accidents, like
pulling and reinserting DIMMs when you forgot about the
standby power etc. People have damaged DIMMs doing that, and
if you get in the habit of turning off the power first (by
unplugging), it just makes working in there that much safer.

Looking at an Intel reference schematic, the battery path
looks like this. I'd also like to look at an AMD schematic,
but don't have any in my collection.

|\ |
3.3V_standby -------| \|-----------------+
reg from 5vsb |/ | |
|
1K ohm |\ | | To Southbridge
Battery ----/\ /\ -----| \|-------+-----+---------->
\/ \/ |/ | |
resistor BAT54C --- 1uF
diode --- filter
| cap
|
__+__
___ GND
_

The battery socket in this case, is well protected. The
1K ohm resistor means little current can flow in that
path in any case. The BAT54C diodes prevent reverse
current flow. I guess you could jam a screwdriver in
the battery socket, and the motherboard would be none the
wiser, if +5VSB is still running. (On some motherboards,
CLRTC is downstream of this circuit, and there, you really
should have the power off if clearing the CMOS, as some
of the CLRTC circuits are pretty stupid. The upper BAT54C
gets burned in that case. The CLRTC method varies from
chipset to chipset, and without documentation, powering
off is the safe thing to do.)

But if you dropped any metal tools in the computer while
doing this operation, who knows what would happen. I'm just
trying to plan for the butter-fingers among us :-) Like,
how would you answer a question where the poster said
"I dropped my screwdriver, there were some sparks, now
it won't boot, can you tell me whats wrong ?" :-) I don't
want to contemplate questions like that.

Paul
 
A conservative rule, is not to have any power on inside the
computer when working on it. It is to prevent accidents, like
pulling and reinserting DIMMs when you forgot about the
standby power etc. People have damaged DIMMs doing that, and
if you get in the habit of turning off the power first (by
unplugging), it just makes working in there that much safer.

Looking at an Intel reference schematic, the battery path
looks like this. I'd also like to look at an AMD schematic,
but don't have any in my collection.

|\ |
3.3V_standby -------| \|-----------------+
reg from 5vsb |/ | |
|
1K ohm |\ | | To Southbridge
Battery ----/\ /\ -----| \|-------+-----+---------->
\/ \/ |/ | |
resistor BAT54C --- 1uF
diode --- filter
| cap
|
__+__
___ GND
_

The battery socket in this case, is well protected. The
1K ohm resistor means little current can flow in that
path in any case. The BAT54C diodes prevent reverse
current flow. I guess you could jam a screwdriver in
the battery socket, and the motherboard would be none the
wiser, if +5VSB is still running. (On some motherboards,
CLRTC is downstream of this circuit, and there, you really
should have the power off if clearing the CMOS, as some
of the CLRTC circuits are pretty stupid. The upper BAT54C
gets burned in that case. The CLRTC method varies from
chipset to chipset, and without documentation, powering
off is the safe thing to do.)

But if you dropped any metal tools in the computer while
doing this operation, who knows what would happen. I'm just
trying to plan for the butter-fingers among us :-) Like,
how would you answer a question where the poster said
"I dropped my screwdriver, there were some sparks, now
it won't boot, can you tell me whats wrong ?" :-) I don't
want to contemplate questions like that.

Paul
Click to expand...

Thanks,
I promise to follow the rules hereafter ;-)

Ron
 
Gee, to make sure I didn't lose settings, the last time I did it, I
performed the operation with the computer powered on. It went very
well, but just how stupid was I? Please try to go a little easy on
me.
Click to expand...
It is very easy to do Ron so do not go kicking yourself I did the same
thing the other week then S**T myself when I found out what I had
done.
I wasn't doing much in there changing over a sata cable I think but it
could have been disastrous I have twenty years of going into puters
and this was the first time I have done this stupid trick .
 
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