CMOS battery going dead?

[JoeCDaMan]

My friend has been having probs with her pc to the extent that it doesn't start up now. Nothing software related has been happening, rather I believe it has to do with her motherboard. When you turn on the machine, all the components physically power up, CPU and fan aswell but everything just sits there. I have had to reset her bios in the past, which alleviated the problem in the past but also troubled me because there is no reason for me to do it. She has not overclocked the cpu or any of the other components which would cause this to happen. The mobo is an ECS k7s5a, ya I know it's not the greatest. The problem has not occured in months, and now when I reset the bios the pc still won't boot. Is this a sign of a dead battery? What effects would the dead battery have on the pc? would it still boot? cause right now the monitor temporarilly comes out of power save for a few seconds then promptly returns.

I'm supposed to see her on friday, so any help before then would be usefull. Also if it is the battery can I just match serial numbers and pick something up from like Walgreens? or is this something that I would have to special order from the manufacturer?

Thanks for your help - much appreciated

 

[johnjkr1]

A dead battery usually only has one symptom......it doesnt hold bios settings (i.e. When you first boot up it says configuration invalid, or something along those lines). A dying battery would not likely cause the computer to not boot up, but a bad part (perhaps motherboard?) just might....make sure youve got the latest bios on that ECS

 

[lenjack]

Agreed. Not dead, but possibly weak. All recent boards that I can recall use a 2032 lithium battery, about $3. Might be worth a try.