[SOLVED] CMOS Battery Overuse, Is It Possible?

[allahsiz]

Hello, and let me get into the problem, or the question I might say.

All my components work pretty well, except MoBo I guess. Problem is that whenever the PC turns on, there is not a problem about keeping it up, no puns intended, but when I turn it off and try to power it on once again after like one day, BIOS gives me the "yo battery ain workin, keep it changed dude" message; F1 to Setup, F2 to Continue screen and does not continue booting if I choose to do so. Also sometimes the screen doesn't even show up, and goes into a loop of booting, no screen showing up, neither the keyboards and such keep a continuous power in (or on?) them.

The solution I found was to change the battery with a brand-new one. Trying the old ones didn't work, but a new battery surely works. Keeps the loop away, and let me do the "PC things" as a normal PC.

(forgot to mention but when I try to look at the batterys remaining power, there is none left.)

So the question is, can a MoBo overuse the battery, which I think can happen, and if it is so, is there a way to solve this with either repairing it or any other way.

Thanks.

MoBo: 970A G43
CPU: X8 8320
PSU: High Power 750W

 

[Barty1884]

No, a motherboard cannot "overuse" a CMOS battery - but like any battery, it ages/degrades.

The 970A-G43 launched in Jan 2013, so it's potentially 6 years old at this point. A CMOS battery replacement (or two) wouldn't be unrealistic at this stage in the game.

 

[Math Geek]

the battery keeps the BIOS memory going while the pc is off or unplugged. the battery will eventually drain and need to be replaced. however this normally takes years. literally 5+ years and often longer.

so 5 years or so is plenty normal for the battery to drain on you easily.

if it is draining in 1 month, then something is wrong for sure but no idea what it would be. likely something other than BIOS is using the power though not sure at all what would since it is not made that way.

 

[allahsiz]

Thanks for the reply.

Not to sound a smarty, but I know the fact that the battery is for a long run, and this is the reason I felt the urge to ask the question.

Also edit to the original post: I am not sure how this would affect the case (no puns...)
but my "battery died page" also suggests that I have 3 keyboards even thought as a normal humanbeing I have one. Maybe there's something wrong about this. this is the photo

 

[allahsiz]

W

No, a motherboard cannot "overuse" a CMOS battery - but like any battery, it ages/degrades.

The 970A-G43 launched in Jan 2013, so it's potentially 6 years old at this point. A CMOS battery replacement (or two) wouldn't be unrealistic at this stage in the game.

But I need to change it whenever I want to power the PC.

 

[Barty1884]

Sorry, that wasn't clear.

Do you have a clear CMOS jumper on that board? Perhaps it's set the wrong position, so you're losing all your BIOS settings upon each boot. Might throw up a false positive that the battery is failing?

 

[Math Geek]

that would be my first guess now as well. though how it got moved is an odd question.

i have not seen it happen but is it possible for that jumper to go bad causing the BIOS to lose its settings every boot?

i can't think of anything else that would draw power from that battery on the mobo. even full drain it should last a good couple weeks if something was drawing from it

 

[TJ Hooker]

So you're saying you're having to put a new CMOS battery in every time you start your PC? How many have you gone though, and over how long a period?

 

[allahsiz]

Sorry, that wasn't clear.

Do you have a clear CMOS jumper on that board? Perhaps it's set the wrong position, so you're losing all your BIOS settings upon each boot. Might throw up a false positive that the battery is failing?

I don't have a jumper on the pins, whenever I need them, I put to reset, then take it off. Maybe this is a problem? Should I leave it?

 

[allahsiz]

that would be my first guess now as well. though how it got moved is an odd question.

i have not seen it happen but is it possible for that jumper to go bad causing the BIOS to lose its settings every boot?

i can't think of anything else that would draw power from that battery on the mobo. even full drain it should last a good couple weeks if something was drawing from it

Maybe something wrong with the pathway of electricity?

 

[allahsiz]

So you're saying you're having to put a new CMOS battery in every time you start your PC? How many have you gone though, and over how long a period?

It's been like 5 batteries, counting now, 6. I just turned my computer off yesterday.

 

[Karadjgne]

How many pins are there for bios reset? Some mobo's have 2x some 3x. The ones with 3x should normally have a jumper between 1-2 and when reseting you temporarily use 2-3 (10 seconds or so) then replace on 1-2. The boards with 2 pins should have no jumper.

 

[Math Geek]

the only thing i can think of is that the mobo itself is just faulty from age. product page

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/970a-g43.html

says the mobo has "Active Phase Switching" which says it changes power draw from the psu on the fly and can even cut it off at will. i wonder if something hasn't gone wrong with that bit of magic and somehow effected the battery to drain super quick. though i'm still not sure how it would happen as i thought the battery was only connected to the BIOS chip and nothing else.

it's also possible the BIOS chip or its power circuitry itself is faulty and draining the battery

 

[Karadjgne]

Phase control is the amount of power supplied to the cpu by the motherboard. It's an eco setting. If the pc is sitting idle or doing light work like websurfing, there's no real need for uber high voltages and current to be going through the mobo at all times, so phase control cuts it down a little. For real world or OC, you can disable that, it's next to useless.

Bios is Basic input/output, it's like a symphony conductor. When you turn on the pc, bios checks all the components, kicks them awake, directs them how to play, when and where etc. CMOS is the sheet music, it's the list of instructions/memory of components inside the pc that bios uses to do its thing. You don't really reset bios, you really reset CMOS by wiping out that list/memory so forcing the bios to get up off its comfy seat and go find everything itself. The battery is what supplies power to that CMOS chip at all times, so it retains the list. Remove the battery and the list is wiped, forces bios to start from scratch.

Not sure why the battery is depleting so fast, it's only job is to keep that list alive, which lasts for years, so unless there's some sort of direct short on that cmos chip, it normally goes nowhere or does anything. It only takes a fraction of the power of a really small led to enable CMOS.

 

[Math Geek]

i understand all that

hence the confusion really. other than the chip itself shorting, i can't think of any way for that battery to drain so fast. i don't think the mobo provides any power to it at any time for it to somehow go the other way and drain the battery. kind of leaves no other answer except for faulty board due to age. there is just no other way for it to do what it's doing.

 

[Karadjgne]

It'd also have to be a loaded short through a component or even the IC itself, a direct short like contact with the motherboard tray would make for a satisfying bang. Gotta say, first time in over 30 years I've ever seen this happen to a pc.

 

[allahsiz]

How many pins are there for bios reset? Some mobo's have 2x some 3x. The ones with 3x should normally have a jumper between 1-2 and when reseting you temporarily use 2-3 (10 seconds or so) then replace on 1-2. The boards with 2 pins should have no jumper.

There are two pins that are without the jumper, you put the jumper on, then when it's done, you take it out and put it in your pin box.

 

[allahsiz]

But other than that, is there any rechargeable CMOS batteries? I kind of heard that lithium batteries cannot be recharged, but then, any other "kind" (not like Kevin Hovind) of batteries that are rechargeable and can be handmadedly connected to the pins of CMOS battery "socket", I should say?

 

[Azzyasi]

I found that PC's that are unused for long time and unplugged from the wall tend to drain batteries faster then the computers that are plugged in all time.

Between 30 PC's I change each year 5batteries. (those computers are really old, running old software in a university lab.. we don't need them all time in that lab, so they are stored in a pile somewhere out of the way, and put them on desks only when we need them.. and that happens to be 2months every year. Those pc's are quite old 2005-2008)

In contrast, never had a problem with bios battery for another lab that has the pc's permanently connected to mains. (running on 8years already)

From what you say, is abnormal consumption. You can do a parasitic draw current. Connect the battery in series with a mili-amp meter (or microamp meter) and determine what kind of current is drawn at rest.
In attemplt to repair, you could wash the motherboard. maybe some dust, or something is shorting the battery.. By washing i mean get a toothbrush and some IPA and gently massage the pcb to get rid of all gunk/dust from that region. (remove the MB from case for that, vacuum the bulk dust if present)

 

[TJ Hooker]

i don't think the mobo provides any power to it at any time for it to somehow go the other way and drain the battery.

The motherboard provides power to CMOS as long as the PC is plugged in (and the power supply switch isn't off).

 

[Math Geek]

my apologies, i meant that the battery itself is not recharged or anything like that. the battery only feeds the CMOS when it is unplugged. i guess it's possible the power coming in from the psu could be leaking power and draining the battery as it tries to compensate.

i've asked a few others about this and everyone had the same answer we've had here. which is "in all the years i've never seen anything like that. no clue what it could be."

 

[Karadjgne]

And that'd all be through a ton of motherboard circuitry first before any voltage feeds the cmos chipset. I could see it happening if a relay specific diode was shorted closed so that the battery is back feeding to the psu (eventually), or even trying to keep the motherboard active after shutdown as a result. If it was such, then that's a mobo issue thats non repairable/non avoidable and basically the mobo is now trash. I'd be hunting down RMA paperwork if there's a possibility it's still under warranty.