Advice please re short-lived battery

[Carol Bird]

Last November, when I switched on the mains, my desktop PC switched on without my touching the button, and the date and time reverted to the date I bought it. I was advised it needed a new battery, so I replaced it.

Now, just nine months later, it has done the same.

I bought good quality, long-dated, battery, and am told they usually last about five years.

Could someone please tell me if this short-life may indicate something sinister about the computer. :(

Many thanks for any advice.

Carol

[Guest]

have you tried taking the battery out for a few moments then putting it back in ??

[dermotdjt]

Carol

It is unlikely to be anything sinister if by that you mean a virus, malware etc. The battery (CMOS battery) should last some years but I have known them to fail earlier than that particularly in older PC's. How old is your PC

Typically the battery is a CR2032 (small thin disc battery). As you have done, it is worth buying better quality batteries.

AS Val suggests, try reseating the battery. Sometime this is enough for it to continue working as normal. If it doesn't then a replacment battery will be required. If the problem occurs again within the year, it may indicate a potential problem on the motherboard, something that may be due to the age of the PC?

Dermot

[Carol Bird]

Hi Val,

Thank you, as ever, for responding and trying to help me with advice on my problems. I do appreciate being able to turn to you and others on the Forum as I don’t have anyone who’s computer savvy, and neither am I.

I’ll have a jiggle around with it, as you suggest, but I do have a replacement battery at the ready to pop in.

I was rather more worried about whether the battery lasting so little time might indicate a problem with the actual PC, and wondered whether anyone else had similar experience.

My thanks again,
Warmest regards,
Carol

[Carol Bird]

Hi Dermot,

Thank you for your input.

As you suspected, my computer is getting on in years, which is why I was particularly worried about the battery life.

I am hanging on to it because I like XP and my favourite FH program (and other progs I like) won’t run on Windows 7, and I don’t like the later versions of FTM, although I have them for the Ancestry sub.

I see that support for XP finishes in April 2014, so I may have to try to adapt – especially if my old beast expires.

Thank you for throwing some light – looks as though I shall probably have to take some drastic decisions within the foreseeable future :(

Carol