Is this a warning ..

agrinnall

Replacing the BIOS battery is a cheap first option so you may as well do it anyway, but I suspect it's more likely to be the laptop battery that'll need to be replaced.

bsod

Lot of misinformation floating around the ether if people thing bios batteries and laptops routinely last 3 years. The former has nothing to do with a hanging or slow booting machine, flat or not.

cajef

Annie1960 wrote: »

I thought 3 years was the expected lifespan of most laptops (and 5 years for desktop).

My Toshiba laptop must be well into old age now as it is nearly eight years old and still working without any problems, apart from battery renewals.

enfield_freddy

yup changing the bios battery on a laptop is a 5 min job , no dought the OP omitted the work "laptop" when they searched for "changing a bios battery"


"normally" , and I will use that word with caution , "if" a bios battery has failed , upon starting it invites you to press "F? etc" to enter setup.

LadyDee

enfield_freddy wrote: »

yup changing the bios battery on a laptop is a 5 min job , no dought the OP omitted the work "laptop" when they searched for "changing a bios battery"

Yes, I think I did:)

I'll see how I get on over the next few weeks.

gjchester

bsod wrote: »

Lot of misinformation floating around the ether if people thing bios batteries and laptops routinely last 3 years. The former has nothing to do with a hanging or slow booting machine, flat or not.

Then you have not been around computers a long time. If the system has to do a full POST test on boot up it will take a lot longer than a short POST test.


If a laptop is plugged in most of its life the BIOS battery will last a long time, if its often left with a discharged batter and off the mains then it won't last as long. Batteries also fail, and low voltage can create all sorts of odd effects, from not booting, losing time and even making the laptop forget everything.


Most devices now connect to a network time server on boot so you may not even notice if a BIOS battery is losing time and drifting, as it will be reset before you log on, other than if it fails totally and resets back to the usual reset date of 1st Jan 2007


Its not a wonder fix, but its probably less than a fiver to try.

bsod

Time server default is not daily.

If you have been around a long time, you will also know that the first thing that happens is a bios error message and invalid certificates, and a slow boot can be cause by 1000s of things.

Replacing a bios battery without any evidence it is dead is try anything diagnostics.

agrinnall

bsod wrote: »

Replacing a bios battery without any evidence it is dead is try anything diagnostics.

As is "turn it off and on again", yet that works pretty often, so why not just try a 5 minute task costing a few quid at most before spending considerably more money on investigating more serious faults?

enfield_freddy

agrinnall wrote: »

As is "turn it off and on again", yet that works pretty often, so why not just try a 5 minute task costing a few quid at most before spending considerably more money on investigating more serious faults?

hello ! its a laptop , not a base PC , changing a bios battery in a laptop is not 5 mins and a couple of quid

gjchester

enfield_freddy wrote: »

hello ! its a laptop , not a base PC , changing a bios battery in a laptop is not 5 mins and a couple of quid

Depends entirely on the make, in almost all cases the BIOS battery is a good old CR2025 or CR2032, the question is it it accessible under a easily removed cover/flap, and is it a regular battery or has the maker soldered leads and connectors on it.

Cheaper the laptop more likely it uses a standard battery holder