Cmos

Sppeccy reads 1.620 V so should I put a new CMOS battery in or wait till the clock starts to act up.
Once I do, whenever, don't I set default in the older BIOS?

I tried to press the spring loaded clip but was unable to free the battery on my desktop. The Dell manual has the diagram and directions wrong. It has a spring loaded clip I see people push with, screw drivers, pens and all sorts of tools. None were able to free up the battery with fingers. If the power is off, the power button pressed for a couple of seconds and the power switch off, wound it be safe to touch it with a screwdriver as I have seen done? I would be careful b/c if broken the battery would not be able to be replaced.

I asked this before but it is now 6 years old and am now suspect.

 

No idea what part of the Speccy report that is or what you think it is telling you.
But here is a guide to replacing the CMOS battery IF you are having issues that indicate it needs replacing:
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000239.htm

 

I have seen several flavors of battery holders; but, most use one of three techniques to remove the battery.
On most, the battery is held in by a small metal clip on one side and pushing the clip with a fingernail or small screwdriver causes the battery to pop upwards where the clip was holding it down.
Slightly less common is where you can see two arcs of plastic on the side opposite from the clip with a section in between where you put a small screw driver between the battery and the holder in that section and pry the battery sideways towards the clip. On these, the battery pops up from under the plastic arcs when you slide it far enough.
The third, which is far older, is when there is a metal bar that stretches across the battery, holding it down. With them you have to pry the battery upwards slightly and then slide it out from under the metal bar.
Personally, I would remove the power cord from the power supply and push the power button for a few seconds to make sure there was no juice available and, from personal experience, if you change the battery quickly enough, you may not need to run setup, at all. The clock chip's circuitry will operate for about 30 seconds without the battery.

 

@davismccarn Specifically, and where I had a problem, is where do you press that spring clip? Do you press back, down or ? Which part of the spring do you press, the bottom or the back. It looks like a right angle.
On YouTube, each of about 5 people had to use something besides a finger to press it until the battery popped out.
I am leery about metal yet some were using a screw driver. One person use a mechanical pencil with no lead which seems the easiest.
@max When I ran Speccy it said CMOS with a reading of 1.620 next to it.

This is not easy to remove especially on a 6 year old machine. Yes, I have one on hand.

 

I would not go by Speccy. It is a great program I use a lot, but not for voltages. It currently says my CMOS battery is 1.524V. It should be 3V. And it says my +12V is .048V. If my +12 was really that, this computer would not be running.

If you suspect the battery (and if 6 years old, it could be on its last leg) I would replace it. They are only a couple $$ at Walmart so you are not out much either way.

As noted in that ComputerHope article, just make sure you unplug the computer from the wall and touch bare metal of the case interior to discharge any static in your body BEFORE reaching in to prevent any ESD damage. Observe polarity of the battery before removing so you can insert the new one correctly.

Do not touch the new battery with your bare fingers as skin oils promote corrosion and attract dust. I put a clean sock over my hand.

As for removing the old, you will have to inspect the battery holder to see how it works. Sadly, there are many types. But generally, it is held in place simply by spring tension so generally it is pretty easy to pop out. A "small" screwdriver to pry it out works fine. The biggest danger (besides ESD) is if you slip because the screwdriver tip is hard and sharp and could damage another component.

I don't think a mechanical pencil is not really sturdy enough. One of those wooden cuticle sticks ladies use on their fingernails work too.

Frankly, my biggest problem when removing and replacing these batteries is my own hand getting in the way of me seeing what I am doing - depending on the case.

While you have the case open and are inside, make sure the interior is clean of heat trapping dust. And give each fan a little flick to make sure it spins freely and the bearings are not starting to seize.

Once the new battery is replaced, connect power and boot directly into the BIOS Setup Menu. Set/reset date and time, make sure the boot order for your drives is how you want it, then Save and Exit to boot normally.

 

Press the spring clip away from the battery, to the side.
And do post a screenshot of Speccy.

 

If you currently have no problems on the system as in the article I wouldn't bother changing it now.

 

Here is Speccy but I agree with Digerati it may be off.
Thanks for the comment about pressing away from the battery to the side.
I understand all you have written, D, you must be a proficient typist -I am hunt and peck, hence brief.

 

I can't read that. Bad screenshot - needed to be cropped so only the relevant section shows clearly. But if all on system works fine no point in changing the battery.

 

Your screen shot is hard for me to see, but it looks like your +5V is reading +2.8V. That is way out of tolerance (no more than ±5% is allowed) too and I doubt your system would be running if that far off.

I recommend you try a different monitoring program. I use HWiNFO64 mostly, though the amount of information can be overwhelming. But note on my system, it says my VBAT (CMOS) voltage is 3.048V and my +12V is +12.168V which makes a lot more sense.

 

I used the snipping tool

 

1.620 V is way to low and I agree with Digerati - the PC won't boot if it's that low.

 

Disregard Speccy at least.
Any signs of the clock not working, I'll give it a shot with the instructions I received here.

 

On most you push the spring clip sideways which unlatches the battery and it then pops up.
BTW (By The Way), ALL of your speccy voltages are gescrewdefay. The +5V is showing 2.863 and the PC would not work at all if that were true!
The first sign that the CMOS battery is dying is when the PC's clock runs either fast or slow when the system is turned off.

 

A low CMOS battery will not stop a computer from running, but it would most likely cause some problems - most notably with date and time stamps, and checksum errors during boot.

The 2.8V for the 5V would, however, keep the computer from running. And since it appears it is running, I doubt that is correct which leads to suspect the CMOS voltage reading is wrong too.

Frankly, replacing the CMOS battery is one of the easiest maintenance (and cheapest) tasks, but Max is right in that it really is not needed if you are not experiencing any problems right now. These are Lithium Ion batteries and while I have seen them fail in as little as 3 years (actually, I had a couple be DOA when brand new), but I have also had them last for 10 years.

Are you having problems, or just trying to be proactive? Nothing wrong with being proactive - as I noted above, I would replace it if I suspected it was failing. But I would not run out and buy a battery just because it is 6 years old (especially not based on Speccy). Again, what does HWiNFO say?

 

I used HWiNFO sometime ago but don't have it installed right now.
All's well for now till the time acts up at which point I'll exchange them. I have 2 on hand.
Thanks all.

 

No idea what they are meant to be telling us, and the second screenshot is totally unreadable.

 

Those that readings from HWinfo.
By the way I use Chrome and I sent the post to myself and it is quite legible. I can even read them with my phone

 

The second screenshot - the large one - is totally unreadable. But as already posted by several people, if your system works fine then just forget about it for the time being.

 

I am not going to pay attention to the detections by these programs and will employ the old strategy of Kiss also if it ain't broke don't fix it

 

I can barely read the 2nd one but it is too fuzzy to be certain and that's on a 24 inch monitor.

But I can read the first and see where the VBAT reads 3.24V. That's good.

Your 3.3V however, is low. So is your +12V.

The ATX Form Factor standard allows ±5%.

12VDC ±5% = 11.4 to 12.6VDC
5VDC ±5% = 4.75 to 5.25VDC
3.3VDC ±5% = 3.14 to 3.47VDC​

This suggest your power supply is failing.

 

The PSU is about 6 months old.

 

The PSU is about 6 months old.
Could you determine if the CMOS battery is adequate?
I do not really know what all the numbers mean.

 

As I indicated above VBAT is the CMOS battery voltage and yours looks good.

Brand new power supplies can be bad.

I don't know what to say to that. I showed the range the +12, +5 and +3.3 volts are allowed to fall within. The +12 volts is allowed to be as low as 11.4V or as high as 12.6V. If your voltages don't fall withing that ±5% range, then there's a problem. According to your screen shot, your +12V is reading +11.28.

 

Thank you.
It's 6 years old with a new hard five, power supply and monitor.
I'll use it but not pour any more money into it.
When it goes I'll get a new tower.
Micro Center builds them for you.