Re: Battery Changing

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'Earl Partridge' wrote, in part:
| If the on-board battery dies, you lose your CMOS settings, right?
| And if you replace the battery, even before it dies, you're also going to
| lose those settings, right?
_____

If you have a fairly modern system using at least an ATX power supply,
turning the power off with the front panel switch does NOT turn off the
power to the CMOS, system clock, and a few other components. ATX power
supplies provide a 'Standby' +5 volts whenever plugged in to the AC mains.
This 'Standby' power is used to switch full power on and off, power circuits
like those mentioned before, and provide functions like 'Wake on LAN'.

If the CMOS/clock battery is dead, you would have already lost the CMOS
settings if you have unplugged the system or used the back panel on/off
switch (if one is present) since the battery died.

If you remove the battery while 'Standby' power is ON, then the CMOS and
clock functions will be preserved.

As for safety, on of the reasons for the move to the ATX power supply is
that ALL AC mains power is confined within the power supply case. Only the
DC voltages of +12 V, +5 V, +3.3 V, -5 V, and -12 V appear outside the power
supply case.

If you are not experienced working on electronic equipment, I'd suggest that
you unplug the system from the mains before working inside the system case.
As others have suggested, it is easy to back up the CMOS settings, and the
default settings will be loaded from the BIOS if the CMOS settings are lost.
That will be enough for you to boot your system and restore the settings,
either from a floppy or CD-ROM, or manually from a written list.

Phil Weldon

"Earl Partridge" <earlpNG@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ry4xg.4200$157.1078@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
| Not an XP question but since the more knowledgeable folks hang out
| here...
|
| If the on-board battery dies, you lose your CMOS settings, right?
| And if you replace the battery, even before it dies, you're also going to
| lose those settings, right?
|
| Can the battery be replaced while the machine is running so as not to
| lose those settings?
|
| Earl
|
|


.

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