StitchInTime Posted February 11, 2007 Share Posted February 11, 2007 My floppy drive wasn’t working, and I knew from past experience that this was probably because it was loose. I shut off the computer, opened the case, and ’tightened’ it. I then noticed there was a lot of dust and cleaned it up a bit. After I put it on again, I got an error message, “date and time lost.†The detailed error message I got was something about, when the computer is unplugged for a long time the battery may dischargeâ€â€Âthis did not apply, since I did not unplug it. Then it suggested I check to see if the battery was inserted properly, or replace it if there’s something wrong with it. (This was very annoying, because it took me about twenty minutes to close this stupid case, which is very difficult to close.) I corrected the time, and then windows came up. As I expected, the floppy drive was now working fine. I then restarted to see if the other problem was fixed, and got the same error message. I shut the computer off, opened it, and jiggled the battery a bit, but I’m not sure how to remove it, and not sure what happens when you remove it; so, I did not do that. When I put the computer back on, I had the same error message, and had to reset the time again. I decided to leave the computer on for the night, and test it again in the morning. I restarted it this morning and all was well. Then I decided to shut it down completely for a few minutes, and when I restarted it, it was still okay. Now that this has happened, I have a few questions. 1. What are some of the possible causes for this? (For example, could static from the dust have temporarily zapped the battery when the dust got blown out?) 2. What happens if you shut down, unplug and take out the battery and put it back in? (not that I know how to get the damn thing out anyway. It seems to pretty solidly fixed in there.) (3. Finally, why does this sort of thing always happen at one o’clock in the morning, so that I always end up losing sleep over it? (It all started after a certain program crashed my PC.)) (I have several computer manuals, but oddly enough, none of them has anything to say about batteries. How stupid is that? Okay, okay, I’m not exactly a computer genius either, but really!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GorunNova Posted February 11, 2007 Share Posted February 11, 2007 ... the manuals probably don't mention it because 1) they're probably incomplete, or 2) because CMOS batteries (I assume that's the type you're talking about) tend to outlast the actual computer's lifecycle. What will happen if you pull the battery, is that everything in BIOS and CMOS will reset to default values (probably January 19-something-a-long-time-ago for date). What it sounds like is that the battery came a little loose or something, and the jiggling reseated it properly... especially since the problem seemed to go away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Megalith Posted February 11, 2007 Share Posted February 11, 2007 yeah i agree with GuranNova the Battery probably got knocked while you were cleaning out dust etc. if it keeps on happening then you will need a replacement. the effect will be the bios will reset to factory defaults at each power off if the battery is dead/faulty/loose. You may have fixed it by 'wiggling it' in which case setting the bios will persist upon power off and it should be the end of the issue. I am presuming while i write this post you have fixed it. but if not it maybe the cradle thats the fault and not the battery. if you have an old motherboard somewhere you could try swapping the battery as the chances are they are the same type, if it is the cradle then its a serious problem and may need to be replaced or resoldered. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StitchInTime Posted February 11, 2007 Author Share Posted February 11, 2007 ... the manuals probably don't mention it because 1) they're probably incomplete, or 2) because CMOS batteries (I assume that's the type you're talking about) tend to outlast the actual computer's lifecycle. I don't know. It's a round silver thing, which one of the manuals at least labels as a battery. What will happen if you pull the battery, is that everything in BIOS and CMOS will reset to default values (probably January 19-something-a-long-time-ago for date). Ah, well then I guess it's a good thing I went through and printed out all of those screens after I lost some of the settings about a year ago and had to guess what they were to get my computer working again. (I don't have a manual for this system as somebody got it for me second hand some years ago.) What it sounds like is that the battery came a little loose or something, and the jiggling reseated it properly... especially since the problem seemed to go away. I would have thought that, except that right after I did that, I checked and it still did not fix the problem. The problem only seemed to go away after I had left the computer on all night. That's why I wondered if the battery had somehow gotten zapped and lost it's charge or something. Is that possible? yeah i agree with GuranNova the Battery probably got knocked while you were cleaning out dust etc. if it keeps on happening then you will need a replacement. the effect will be the bios will reset to factory defaults at each power off if the battery is dead/faulty/loose. You may have fixed it by 'wiggling it' in which case setting the bios will persist upon power off and it should be the end of the issue. I am presuming while i write this post you have fixed it. but if not it maybe the cradle thats the fault and not the battery. if you have an old motherboard somewhere you could try swapping the battery as the chances are they are the same type, if it is the cradle then its a serious problem and may need to be replaced or resoldered. I do have an old PII that has everything in it except RAM and a hard drive; so, I'm pretty sure there's a battery in there, though it will have long since lost it's charge, I imagine. Interestingly, the only thing that I lost was the time and date. All the other settings remained in tact, and I know that a few had been changed when I got the computer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hilander72 Posted February 11, 2007 Share Posted February 11, 2007 I think it might be the battery that is old and can't recharge as much as it could when it was new... It probably 'ran out' when you played around with the floppy, and didn't manage to recharge enough when you left it on for while, but when you left it running for hours it recharged (although it doesn't have the same capacity anymore). Usually this problem strikes old machines and it can (mostly) easily be replaced with an identical type (I've done it a few times). If you don't replace it, the same problem might become persistent in the future (who knows when). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arktis Posted February 12, 2007 Share Posted February 12, 2007 Interestingly' date=' the only thing that I lost was the time and date. All the other settings remained in tact, and I know that a few had been changed when I got the computer.[/quote'] So you're saying that the date and time in your bios was changed, but that none of the other settings went to default? I am curious to know what all the defaults are for your bios, especially what the default time is. The reason I wonder about it is because I can't see how this would happen. Reset everything. You can change it all back later. Any bios will have a menu option to set every value back to factory defaults, which is exactly what will happen when you pop the bios battery out (sometimes you have to set a jumper to clear the memory though, and then set the jumper back to normal). Compare the default values to whatever you have now and especially compare the value that he clock keeps getting reset to to the default. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kyran Posted February 13, 2007 Share Posted February 13, 2007 It's possible for a surge to reset bios and not do any damage, older computers are much more robust than new ones those batteries do run out. pop down to the local pound store and get a replacement Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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