CMOS battery dead?

Support & Help Requests Hardware
#1

Hi all,

my HP Compaq Presario tower PC has a problem when starting, it keeps asking to reset the clock, anyone know if it is the CMOS battery causing the problem, the keyboard and mouse are also switching off before booting to GRUB and sometimes it works okay!.

When switching on the PC, it goes into some sort of sleep mode, I press the power button (soft power down) and then restart and it boots. :confused:

I have done a complete fresh install of both Windows and Ubuntu Mate thinking it may have been a Windows bug, the problem first reared it’s ugly head when I switched Windows clock to manual settings and hasn’t been right since. :frowning:

#2

Hi wolfman

Could you of unknowingly changed a bios setting?

That sounds like weak power supply. Do you have a lot of peripherals plugged into your box?

#3

I support v3xx’s line of thought wolfman,

I had similar problems while upgrading an older machine and had used an
eBay adapter. It was a standard hard drive power connector to a
splitter giving double SATA plugs. Probably only one strand of copper
in each lead :frowning: However it did not completely stop the machine working
as such, just made it very slow to boot and unreliable in nearly every
way. After splicing in proper gauge wires, plus plugs, with the
soldering iron, the exact same system did not miss a beat. How many
hard drives/peripherals do you have?

#4

If the PC is a few years old it (or the power supply) may have the bloated capacitor disease.

What model and/or motherboard?

#5

Hi al,

thanks for the replies, I have since flattened the hard drive and re-installed Windows 10 as the only OS on the drive, there is still a problem with the clock and I am not sure if it is indeed the battery?.

@anon42388993, I did not Change any BIOS Settings and the devices that I have plugged in are the same as always!.

@robwlakes, I only have one drive (1TB WD HDD) and I have looked at the board and there are no signs of anything wrong with the SATA cables!.

@Dave_Barnes, there is no sign of any bloated capacitor’s on the board, what I did look for is the “Master Jumper” but could not determine where it is on the board!. :smiley:

I will re-install UM 16.04 on the free space on the drive and see what happens, the message is still coming up about the clock and I think it has something to do with Windows but I’m not sure?. :confused: I may try buying a new battery too!. :smiley:

I will get back to you all. :slight_smile:

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#6

I just tried this tip so I will see if it helps in the next few starts:

Win 7 solution here (untested by me!):

and the Linux variant (also untested by me as of yet!):

I have also re-installed UM 16.04 with all updates and my fav apps, I now only have UM 16.04 and Win 10 on the HDD!. :smiley:

#7

Hi all,

just to report that the problem is solved and that it was indeed the battery which was causing the initial problem!. :smiley:

I removed AVG Free on both my PC’s and I am just using Windows Defender on Win 10 as I am also not sure that the app was doing me any favours!.

Thanks for your help. :thumbsup:

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