StarDestroyer.Net BBS

I've googled this and the answers are a bit sketchy. I have had my PC now for 3 years. One day last week this warning started popping up on booting up. "Low System Battery Voltage" Press F1 to continue or F2 to enter SetUp.

It sounds ominous but noticed no change in my system's performance but in all the years of PC ownership I have never run across this error.

The google searches seem to show that thisa is some sort of error with a battery on my Motherboard but not sure about the details or if that's true.

Anyone have any answers and hopefully solutions? I don't want to have my system crap out on me out of the blue.

The most likely effect of your battery crapping out is that the time will be wrong. If you've changed any BIOS settings, those will probably be lost as well. To fix the error, take the battery out of the computer (you can do it with it still running, if you'd like), and replace it with a new one. It's going to be a silver colored disk, about a quarter in size. Radio Shack should have one for decently cheap.

Replacing the battery on the motherboard should fix that. I don't think it would cost very much to have a tech do it either.

Superman wrote:Replacing the battery on the motherboard should fix that. I don't think it would cost very much to have a tech do it either.

Yeah, but it's like a couple dollars for the part, and there should be only one thing like it on the MB. Tech would probably charge $50 for labor, or something insane like that.

Beowulf is right. Assuming the error message is correct (dubious after just three years but stranger things have happened) simply replace the battery.

If it's like every motherboard I've seen, it should be a CR2032 button cell. You can get one for about 6 bucks or less at Wal-Mart, Radio Shack, or pretty much any other place that sells batteries. Interestingly enough, it's also the same type of battery used by many NES games including The Legend of Zelda and Kirby's Adventure, so if the game stops saving your data, just open the cartridge and replace the battery. You won't get your old data back, but at least it won't continue failing to save data.

Beowulf wrote:

Superman wrote:Replacing the battery on the motherboard should fix that. I don't think it would cost very much to have a tech do it either.

Yeah, but it's like a couple dollars for the part, and there should be only one thing like it on the MB. Tech would probably charge $50 for labor, or something insane like that.

Man, I'm a computer technician, and I'd cringe if someone handed me a laptop and said "change the BIOS battery". Maybe I'd get lucky and it'd be relatively accessible and simple to get at. Or maybe I'd get unlucky and have to remove half the exterior components before I finally got to it.

Or if you were really unlucky, it'd be hard soldered to the system board.
As part of my 'on the side' computer repair bit, I charge $20 (which isn't bad for a housecall visit of any kind) to replace coin cell batteries.

If I ran into a system with the battery hard soldered to the board, I'd say 'no charge' and tell them to take it to the local Mom & Pop PC shop for replacement.
I'm not scared of working on laptops, but my soldering iron-fu is weak at best.

I had that issue when I replaced the battery in my copy of Zelda. After exploding one battery, I gave up on soldering and just wedged the fucker in place with the metal tab I was trying to solder it to.