My PC wouldn't start up one day, completely without warning. A friend
had a quick look, saw the red/green hd/power lights come on for a
split second, and said "Ah, in that case, it could well be your
lithium battery that needs replacing".
A new one proved he was right, and I was highly delighted as it was a
very cheap fix to a problem I was fearing the worst about. However,
I'm curious! I knew of the existence of such batteries, but was told
many years ago "You'll get advance warning when the battery needs
replacing because your PC will start to bleep everytime you turn it
on".
"David" <nurse.abbatoirXYZ@btinternetXYZ.com> wrote in message
news:48d4dc83.2013825@news.btinternet.com...
> Hello,
>
> My PC wouldn't start up one day, completely without warning. A friend
> had a quick look, saw the red/green hd/power lights come on for a
> split second, and said "Ah, in that case, it could well be your
> lithium battery that needs replacing".
>
> A new one proved he was right, and I was highly delighted as it was a
> very cheap fix to a problem I was fearing the worst about. However,
> I'm curious! I knew of the existence of such batteries, but was told
> many years ago "You'll get advance warning when the battery needs
> replacing because your PC will start to bleep everytime you turn it
> on".
>
> Was I told a load of baloney there?!
>
> Thanks!
> David
No not so much as advance warning more a indication that the battery has
failed the beeps you will get are because on boot the hardware is no longer
recognised from the bios information stored so generates error codes. Some
bios
do behave differently losing not only drive info but also cpu settings ,
integrated hardware and even memory size info others can recover from some
of the losses.
When the led light flashed your pal realised the HDD had not totally failed
I'm betting he opened the bios checked for and reset the hard drive settings
then rebooted to confirm his suspicions
Derek
McCoy: Medical men are trained in logic.
Spock: Trained? Judging from you, I would have guessed it was trial and
error.
"David" <nurse.abbatoirXYZ@btinternetXYZ.com> wrote in message
news:48d4dc83.2013825@news.btinternet.com...
> Hello,
>
> My PC wouldn't start up one day, completely without warning. A friend
> had a quick look, saw the red/green hd/power lights come on for a
> split second, and said "Ah, in that case, it could well be your
> lithium battery that needs replacing".
>
> A new one proved he was right, and I was highly delighted as it was a
> very cheap fix to a problem I was fearing the worst about. However,
> I'm curious! I knew of the existence of such batteries, but was told
> many years ago "You'll get advance warning when the battery needs
> replacing because your PC will start to bleep everytime you turn it
> on".
>
> Was I told a load of baloney there?!
>
> Thanks!
> David
You do not get a warning if your cmos battery is starting to get low...
normally it will either hold the settings or not.
If it goes dead, you may get a warning such as "cmos battery dead"
or "checksum error" etc
David wrote:
> Hello,
>
> My PC wouldn't start up one day, completely without warning. A friend
> had a quick look, saw the red/green hd/power lights come on for a
> split second, and said "Ah, in that case, it could well be your
> lithium battery that needs replacing".
>
> A new one proved he was right, and I was highly delighted as it was a
> very cheap fix to a problem I was fearing the worst about. However,
> I'm curious! I knew of the existence of such batteries, but was told
> many years ago "You'll get advance warning when the battery needs
> replacing because your PC will start to bleep everytime you turn it
> on".
>
> Was I told a load of baloney there?!
>
> Thanks!
> David
While it would be possible for a MB maker to design in a low-voltage
warning system for the battery, I know of none that do it -- that extra
$0.50 that it would cost them represents lost profits. I find that a better
predictor of battery health is the system clock: it will usually become
quite erratic as the battery approaches its final days and the system will
have no clue about the date and time when the system is powered up.
No advance warning. On a reboot, the CMOS table (what the battery is
keeping alive) is cleared and the factory defaults load from EEPROM.
However, rare few users monitor for changes in their BIOS settings after
a reboot.
Some [old] motherboards will not boot when the battery is low/dead.
Most motherboards will boot with a dead battery but you get the EEPROM
(factory) defaults on a cold start.
"David" <nurse.abbatoirXYZ@btinternetXYZ.com> wrote in message
news:48d4dc83.2013825@news.btinternet.com...
> Hello,
>
> My PC wouldn't start up one day, completely without warning. A friend
> had a quick look, saw the red/green hd/power lights come on for a
> split second, and said "Ah, in that case, it could well be your
> lithium battery that needs replacing".
>
> A new one proved he was right, and I was highly delighted as it was a
> very cheap fix to a problem I was fearing the worst about. However,
> I'm curious! I knew of the existence of such batteries, but was told
> many years ago "You'll get advance warning when the battery needs
> replacing because your PC will start to bleep everytime you turn it
> on".
>
> Was I told a load of baloney there?!
>
> Thanks!
> David
On Sat, 20 Sep 2008 13:55:44 -0500, "VanguardLH"
<V@nguard.LH> wrote:
>No advance warning. On a reboot, the CMOS table (what the battery is
>keeping alive) is cleared and the factory defaults load from EEPROM.
>However, rare few users monitor for changes in their BIOS settings after
>a reboot.
>
>Some [old] motherboards will not boot when the battery is low/dead.
>Most motherboards will boot with a dead battery but you get the EEPROM
>(factory) defaults on a cold start.
>
Old may not have much to do with it, the really old ones
tended to at least POST w/o battery while the more recent (5
year old or less) seem more likely not to.
On Sat, 20 Sep 2008 23:47:00 -0400, kony <spam@spam.com>
wrote:
>On Sat, 20 Sep 2008 13:55:44 -0500, "VanguardLH"
><V@nguard.LH> wrote:
>
>>No advance warning. On a reboot, the CMOS table (what the battery is
>>keeping alive) is cleared and the factory defaults load from EEPROM.
>>However, rare few users monitor for changes in their BIOS settings after
>>a reboot.
>>
>>Some [old] motherboards will not boot when the battery is low/dead.
>>Most motherboards will boot with a dead battery but you get the EEPROM
>>(factory) defaults on a cold start.
>>
>
>
>Old may not have much to do with it, the really old ones
>tended to at least POST w/o battery while the more recent (5
>year old or less) seem more likely not to.
I meant more likely not to than the really old ones, not
more likely not to than other contemporary boards.
Quick question re CMOS(?) battery 
Linear Mode
