What Happens When Your CMOS Battery Starts Dying

What Happens When Your CMOS Battery Starts Dying
When your PC is having issues and error codes on start up like these constant beeping sound, unable to detect disk drive, booting error,
CMOS Checksum Error, CMOS Read Error, or CMOS Battery Failure, Time and Date Wrong or computer keeps shutting down. You CMOS battery is failing or dead and needs replacing. Invalid configuration Run Setup and Press F1 to continue will appear on screen.

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[Britec]

This video should help you resolve a lot of computer problems. Drop us a LIKE 👍

[chrisstradling]

I'm surprised motherboard manufacturers haven't come up with a design that detects low voltage on the battery and gives a meaningful warning.

[brainblessed]

CR2032 stands for:
C - type of battery: lithium, voltage 3V
R - shape: round
20 - diameter: 20mm
32 - height: 3.2mm

[georgehartigan]

This video is extremely useful and important, thank you for making it. Many, many people, think that a worn out or faulty CMOS battery will simply set the BIOS values and date/time to their default, and that you can get away with it if you enter the correct values each time you turn on your PC. This, unfortunately, is simply NOT true....
I 've been building PC rigs for more than 20 years for friends and relatives and here's maybe the funniest story that i have to share : i once put together a retro gaming xp pc for myself. Brand new hdd, RAM, good quality PSU, all other hardware known to work PERFECTLY, and just to have everything in top shape, i decided to install a BRAND-NEW CMOS battery, from a very reputable and well-known company i might add...well, to cut a long story short, the pc kept crashing at the same exact point when it was loading windows XP, with me banging my head on the desk trying to figure out what was wrong....after swapping every hardware i could, from all the obvious ones to all cables, and even trying to loosen up the motherboard screws (!), i was ready to give up, when it occured to me to swap the brand new CMOS battery that i had installed with an old battered one i had laying around...and, lo and behold, the PC booted up perfectly!!! the funniest thing is, that the same "faulty" new CMOS battery worked just fine in another Now i 've seen a lot of weird stuff, but never an...incompatibility of a certain motherboard with a specific CMOS battery! Life as a PC tech never ceases to amaze me ....

[XGZTV]

I was about to buy a new PSU because my PC keeps on shutting down and this video saved me a ton of money! Thank you so much!

[missydg]

Thank you. About a week before your video my Intel motherboard wouldn’t boot or power on. Replaced the CMOS battery and it worked then failed again. I forgot to clean the metal contacts. Cleaned and fixed. Also did a deep cleaning of dust and dog fur from my fans and motherboard. Great 👍 video

[writerpatrick]

There's a number of strange behaviors that can occur when the batteries are dying. Usually the most obvious is the time/date problem. It's usually a CR2032 battery which you can often find at the dollar store.

[derekp]

Great video, thanks Brian. I've just changed the CMOS battery on my brothers old XP dual core Pentium 4 PC. There the dying CMOS battery first manifested via errors with delayed writes to the D: drive, then boot errors, but BIOS and time settings were still remembered, so it took a while before I started to suspect the battery.

[GaryBeltz]

I've seen some systems that will refuse to power on with a dead CMOS battery primarily the Prebuilt ones like the old Compaq Presarios from around the Windows ME era are one example if the CMOS battery dies it won't turn on. Carey Holzman had one as soon as he put a new battery in the thing sprang to life without even having to hit the power button

[pibbles-a-plenty]

When the CMOS battery is ending it's life it will still show close to 3 volts by itself. But in the motherboard the voltage will be much lower due to current drain. Best to measure the CMOS battery in the motherboard first before taking it out of it's holder. Measure between the + side on top of the battery in its holder and the board ground at a metal connector shield at the back side of the board. If the battery is at 3 volts or more it has a lot of life left. If it's down to 2.7 volts replace it for good measure before trouble starts.

[BlackDUST..]

EXCELLENT VIDEO REMINDER TO THOSE WHO OVERLOOK THEIR CMOS BATTERY, AND USE THEIR PC AND LAPTOP ON SUCH A REGULAR BASIS.

[fookingsog]

I've gone down to my dollar tree store and purchased a CR2032 for only a buck! Last few times they've had the Panasonic brand!!! I figure if I'm gonna crack my case open for a good blow-out, I might as well check the CMOS battery!!! When I was doing tech work, I'd go to a location and see customers with their tower PC on the floor. WORST place to put a PC....sucks in dust and whatnot!!! Then, if it was a lawyer's office, they'd have crap piled everywhere!!!...pretty much suffocating the airflow to the PC!!! Several times, the pc's contained sooo much dust that the user would complain that the PC was running slow!!! And I'd say...your computer is running slow because the heatsinks are clogged with dust and your processor is throttling down to keep from burning itself out due to lack of free airflow. I would usually get a blank stare in return. 😏

[wizzgamer]

I've had my machine running for 5 years and my CMOS battery still runs sweet as a nut. Battery came free when I bought my motherboard too which was a nice touch.

[rogerbowen]

Since 1993 I've only ever had that happen once. It was on a PC my brother had for several years before he gave it to me. I haven't had any others long enough for that to become an issue. If you're constantly upgrading and buying new parts you may never run across this.

[ZephyrAlphaOne]

Had a power surge recently and my computer wasn't turning on, but the motherboard lights were on (PC was plugged in the power outlet). From the get-go I already knew it wasn't the power supply module, so I started thinking the motherboard had been damaged somewhere. If you're having the same symptoms, I'll save you some precious hours of anxiety: try reseating the CMOS battery, because it worked for me.

[timcollins]

Good info as usual Brain, keep up the good work.

[robertscott]

Without Evan Watching the video. Your clock starts to show the wrong time . For one calendar gets wonky. Stuff starts to slow down or you have issues with accessing the drives kits an allover breakdown of your main board systems . Thank God most of the 2032 battery's are replaceable. Some you have to desolder. Oh your random access memory is linked to the cmos battery. That's if I rember it correctly I grafuated IT school in 03 been a while lol

[shark_yeen]

I just clicked on this out of curiosity because I didn’t know what a cmos battery was and realized that it’s the likely culprit for my repeated boot errors on my ten year old system. I’d just assumed it was my hard drives conflicting at startup but ironically I get the exact issues listed every time I restart it and I’ve just been going through the bios and exiting out just to bypass it lol.

[perherbert]

It's funny you just now made a video on this topic, as i not more than an week ago had to change my battery. 😁👍

[bantymech]

Wow 😲this is the video that I exactly want. Nice one mate.