Does a dead CMOS battery matter?

[swee'pea99]

The old PC I recently bought off ebay is great - way better than the new one I bought last year, which kept crashing - but it doesn't keep time, which I'm assuming means the CMOS battery is very very poorly (which would figure - the machine's probably 5 or 6 years old). Does it matter? I don't care about the clock - I have a watch - so if that's all that's affected I'd rather leave it be. But could it screw up anything else?

 

[GrasB]

You may well get some weird problems in the OS is the time keeps reseting. If the PC is that old it'll be a battery anyway.

 

[HJ]

It can cause problems with the BIOS, best to replace the CMOS battery...

 

[very-near]

Yes, it can affect it in all sorts of ways. A dead CMOS battery is a pain in the arse

 

[Norm]

Being asked the date every time you log in is a PITA.

Not being able to search for the file you worked on yesterday because every file has the date of 1st Jan 1980 could be a lot more than a PITA.

They are generally easy to get at and replace, I would go with that option every time.

 

[swee'pea99]

Thanks. Bugger.

 

[dan_bo]

It's dead easy- flip the side off your PC and it's one of them pound coin- sized batteries that are in a lot of lights these days. Flip the old 'un out and put a fresh one in. Slice of wee.

 

[bonj2]

IT's possible that some badly written applications with time bomb expiration might continue to work when they should expire, so to prevent you accidentally being tempted to steal the usage of such applications you should go out and purchase a brand new PC immediately.

 

[swee'pea99]

Last brand new PC I bought was a great steaming pile o' shite pardon my french. Fuji Siemens - just don't.

 

[Norm]

IT's possible that some badly written applications with time bomb expiration might continue to work when they should expire, so to prevent you accidentally being tempted to steal the usage of such applications you should go out and purchase a brand new PC immediately.

Excellent. Your 30 day trial will never expire!

[quote name='swee'pea99']Last brand new PC I bought was a great steaming pile o' shite pardon my french. Fuji Siemens - just don't.[/QUOTE]
I used to work for Siemens. I agree.

 

[dustystreet]

and if you sendreceive emails, they will have the incorrect date and time which will be a bugger when you search for something

 

[rusky]

As long as Windows sets the correct time via a time server, it should be OK

 

[classic33]

Given the problems that it can cause, mentioned already, I'd replace it.
Small button cell battery, cost around £1.50.
Possible number CR2032, but take the side of the case & check. Even remove it to make certain you get the correct replacement.

How did the printer cleaning work out by the way?

 

[swee'pea99]

Thanks all. One or two of the google hits I got seemed to think it could be quite tricky and things could go wrong and I'd need to write down things from BIOS (which I'm sure I could do, but other things being equal I'd prefer not to have to bother). I guess I'll just have to grit my teeth and get on with it.

The printer cleaning didn't work out sadly. I never could find out how to reset the brain, and without a reset it doesn't matter whether the pads are clean or not, it won't print and that's that. But thanks for asking.

 

[rh100]

Hi SP

When the battery goes flat you will lose the BIOS settings each time you power off the PC, most noticeable effect being the CPU frequency settings being lost - resulting in either an error on boot up or the CPU running slower than it should. May well lose settings to do with the hard disks also. Best to get on with it, should only need doing once.