My home built system is about 5-1/2 years old. It has an Asus P4C800 Deluxe
motherboard. I've been wondering how long is the onboard battery usually good
for on a motherboard? Also, if I decide to swap it out for a new one before it
dies on me, what will I lose and have to reset during the few seconds there's no
battery on the board? Thanks.
> My home built system is about 5-1/2 years old. It has an Asus P4C800
> Deluxe motherboard. I've been wondering how long is the onboard
> battery usually good for on a motherboard?
Just replaced the battery in my 6 year old P4PE motherboard a few months
ago (NewEgg invoice date 3/3/2003).
> Also, if I decide to swap it out for a new one before it dies on me,
> what will I lose and have to reset during the few seconds there's no
> battery on the board? Thanks.
Anything in the BIOS that you changed from the defaults.
You are DEEP into the "danger zone". SOMETIMES these batteries can last
close to 10 years, but the average is probably more like 3 to 4 years
(which you are past).
Ok, what I am about to suggest has it's own dangers (which should be
fairly obvious) but if you change the battery while the computer is ON,
you won't lose anything. A piece of REALLY AGGRESSIVELY STICKY tape on
the battery before you release the clip holding it (and possibly with
the computer on it's side and the motherboard horizontal) may make
removal relatively safe (don't forget that you can drop a battery while
installing it as well as while removing it).
The good news is that today, you probably won't lose anything that will
keep you from booting. You will lose the time and date and pretty much
all other bios settings, but it's not like the old days where drive
geometry was [exclusively] stored in CMOS memory and would make the
system unbootable if it was lost. On most systems, none of the settings
that will be lost will usually be capable of killing the system (there
are, however, some exceptions, especially if you are using an onboard
RAID controller).
Go into BIOS setup and take photos of the configuration screens with a
digital camera.
rfdjr1@optonline.net wrote:
> My home built system is about 5-1/2 years old. It has an Asus P4C800 Deluxe
> motherboard. I've been wondering how long is the onboard battery usually good
> for on a motherboard? Also, if I decide to swap it out for a new one before it
> dies on me, what will I lose and have to reset during the few seconds there's no
> battery on the board? Thanks.
In article <p422655f2cmki6fot80pfveu605r1s8omu@4ax.com>, rfdjr1@optonline.net wrote:
>My home built system is about 5-1/2 years old. It has an Asus P4C800 Deluxe
>motherboard. I've been wondering how long is the onboard battery usually good
>for on a motherboard? Also, if I decide to swap it out for a new one before it
>dies on me, what will I lose and have to reset during the few seconds there's
> no
>battery on the board? Thanks.
this is the one time you should leave the power cable plugged in, when working
on the PC, that way you can just replace the battery and not lose the
settings. Doesnt have to be on, but the power needs to be supplied to the
board , soft off basically.
Re: "this is the one time you should leave the power cable plugged in,
when working on the PC, that way you can just replace the battery and
not lose the settings. Doesnt have to be on ...."
That may be true for some motherboards; it is not true for all of them
(that CMOS will not be lost with the battery removed when the computer
is plugged in but not turned on). Some systems will maintain CMOS from
5VSB (5 volts standby, which is always on while the power supply is
plugged in and not turned off with a rear master switch), but others
only power this from the supply when the computer is actually on. And
manuals normally do not contain this information.
GMAN wrote:
> In article <p422655f2cmki6fot80pfveu605r1s8omu@4ax.com>, rfdjr1@optonline.net wrote:
>> My home built system is about 5-1/2 years old. It has an Asus P4C800 Deluxe
>> motherboard. I've been wondering how long is the onboard battery usually good
>> for on a motherboard? Also, if I decide to swap it out for a new one before it
>> dies on me, what will I lose and have to reset during the few seconds there's
>> no
>> battery on the board? Thanks.
> this is the one time you should leave the power cable plugged in, when working
> on the PC, that way you can just replace the battery and not lose the
> settings. Doesnt have to be on, but the power needs to be supplied to the
> board , soft off basically.
>
>
> That may be true for some motherboards; it is not true for all of them
> (that CMOS will not be lost with the battery removed when the computer
> is plugged in but not turned on). Some systems will maintain CMOS from
> 5VSB (5 volts standby, which is always on while the power supply is
> plugged in and not turned off with a rear master switch), but others
> only power this from the supply when the computer is actually on. And
> manuals normally do not contain this information.
That's what he said. You deleted that part from your quote of his.
"Doesnt have to be on, but the power needs to be supplied to the
board , soft off basically."
>My home built system is about 5-1/2 years old. It has an Asus P4C800 Deluxe
>motherboard. I've been wondering how long is the onboard battery usually good
>for on a motherboard? Also, if I decide to swap it out for a new one before it
>dies on me, what will I lose and have to reset during the few seconds there's no
>battery on the board? Thanks.
When this was posted, it prompted me to take photos of each page of my
A8N-E BIOS settings.
Yesterday when I started my system, the settings were lost and I had a
hard time booting to windows.
I printed out each of the photos (BIOS pages) and installed a new
battery (the original one read less than .25 volt).
The record of the settings was invaluable in restoring the system.
Lesson to be learned: If you don't have a record of all your BIOS
settings, DO IT NOW!!!
Motherboard batteries 
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