Re: CMOS battery

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Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
On Tue, 22 May 2007 23:25:12 -0700, "James" <jc55@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

I'm told the typical life of a CMOS battery may be anywhere from 5-9 years.

IF a computer is powered off most of the time {a spare backup computer}, will the battery last just as long?

Or, is the 5-9 year estimated life of the battery predicated upon the computer being in regular use?



Actually, the battery is used *only* when the computer is powered off,
to maintain the CMOS setting. However, although I have no statistics,
I doubt very much if there's an appreciable difference in battery life
either way.

I also question whether the typical life of a battery is as long as
5-9 years. Again, I have no statistics, but I would have guessed
something more like 3-5 years.

And typical lifetimes don't really matter much, because your battery
may not be typical, and could fail *much* sooner.

Finally, it doesn't really matter much. Replacing a battery is very
inexpensive and easy to do.

--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User
Please Reply to the Newsgroup


"Replacing a battery is very inexpensive and easy to do."
Question: when removing the old battery and replacing it with a new one, do you have a certain amount of time before the settings are lost? Or do they vanish the second you pull out the old battery?

richard
.

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