Okay, not the most likely but I'll take your advice and do it first.
Then I'll do the other things** people here have recommended. Thanks
all. **Except a mobo. Unless you count moving to another computer,
as soon as I can.
I believed him but it's good to hear it again.
Same here.
I've had all of the various flavor CMOS/BIOS batteries do this over
the years. It's even worse when your DVM shows the old batt as good, rip
the machine to shreds on both hardware and software, only to go back to
"Square 1" and find out the &&*^% battery was *it* all along.
Dang!
(and as an aside, this is not just on my own stuff, I have probably 70+
"boxes" that I do the "unpaid/cheap IT guy" thing on. (Friends, family,
low-income, disabled... I think you all know how that goes)
The older lithium "coin cells" (as in the ubiquitous CR2032) are the
worst "liars" on terminal voltage as read with a high-impedance meter
I hate liars. What about a 20K or 50K ohms per volt meter? Would
that do a better job? (I don't see why, but you brought it up.
)
I have a couple of those too.
(your usual DVM/DMM).Read good, but fail intermittently.
I don't remember the exact "average" draw by the mobo when off, but it
was 2-20 uA. I loadtested a few of the failed ones showing > (greater
than) 2.8vdc, (using a decade box) and they would crap out around
0.3-0.5 uA.
So maybe an analog meter would help find these! (Well, not all.
For a short while they made FET meters, which had needles but 11
meg-ohm input impedance.)
*Supposedly*, 2.8vdc should be good, but remember 'assume' makes an ass
out of u and me. Been dere, dun dat... all too often.
Me too.
This was on some of the 'crap' CR2032s that were shipped with most
TW/CN motherboards about 6-8 years ago, haven't seen that with the "big
name"(Duracell, Energizer, Sanyo, etc) brands you get at local stores.
IIRC, Dell and Gateway also had "issues" too.
My battery has been replaced once already, but then again, I don't
know the quality of batteries sold at hamfests, or sold by this
particular vendor.
I am 64 and when I grew up, the only uses for batteries were
flashlights and toys. Such toys I never had because "You have to buy
batteries", and I agreed with my parents. Still do. I do realize
that having to plug in a remote control would defeat much of its
purpose. And the cells in computers that last 5 or 10 years are not a
noticeable expense, but I still consider batteries an expense to be
avoided.
So to save a dollar, that day, intead of Lowes, I waited until I got
to walmart** where I got Rayovac AAA alkaline in a pack of 24? for 7
instead of 8 dollars, or 8 instead of 9. The exp. date on the package
is 2014, but they only last about 2 weeks instead of a year in my
remote.
I've lost the receipt. But no one else I know sells Rayovac. They
might know from other customers that they were selling bad batteries,
but I don't know if it is worth trying. Do you think they'll give me
my money back??
**which along with one big-box membership store whose name escapes me
does the best job on photo-cds, because they put a small image of each
photo right on the CD.
It's too early in time to say whether the 'big name' coin cells are all
that more reliable, but my own experience has been good. I haven't had
to replace any of those 'big name'coin cells that I've put in in over 4
years.
MY "now" version is replace it if it's less than 2.9000 vdc, but if I
I can do that. I can certainly measure it when I'm replacing it.
Knowing me, that won't be until the next time the computer won't
start, which should be before June at the rate its going.
even have a suspicion, I replace it. It's cheap/fast, and gives you the
warm fuzzy that *that* issue won't show up for a long time. If it turns
out to be a dead mobo, I get my new CR2032 back, and I use it in my own
stuff.
I consider doing a CMOS batt job as about the same as doing a
"de-wolliebooger (dust cleanout)" job, and usualy do it at the same time.
I was glad to see that people with cleaner houses than I have still
have lots of dust. I guess this is selfish, since I should want them
to have no dust even though I have quite a bit since my furnace wasn't
working right until february. I have an oil furance and the black
dust was not sticky or oily, and blew right off with my mouth, and
sucked off with the computer attachment sold for full-size vacs, like
my shop-vac, but it is hard to get everywhere. (Does anyone get any
use out of those AA battery operated vacuums? That's another thing I
don't like about batteries. They sell things with batteries they say
will work but which don't.)
