[vox-tech] Battery Problem?

[Jeff Newmiller]

Bob Scofield wrote:
> My wife says she's having a problem starting her computer.  She says that when 
> she pushes the start button she hears the sound of the computer starting, but 
> then the computer does not turn on when she releases the button.  She has to 
> try pushing the button a few more times before she can get the computer to 
> come on.
> 
> Is this the battery going out, or is it a problem with the power supply?

Not the battery.  If it remembers the correct time between boots, the
battery is fine.

> Here's one more question.  In the old days I remember making some kind of a 
> Norton Antivirus backup floppy for the CMOS data so that if you replaced a 
> battery your could replace your CMOS data.  But I don't do that anymore.  So 
> if you replace the battery, what do you do about the CMOS?

Reinitialize it with the BIOS setup.

Nonvolatile memory data is inherently specific to the computer.  Norton has
no way of insuring it gets all of the data without testing every model
computer.  They may have an agreement with the BIOS manufacturers to get
info on a lot of computers at once, though.

The more certain way is to make sure you know what all the settings in
the BIOS software are supposed to be before the battery dies. If this
sounds error prone, it is... fortunately, the default settings are almost
always enough to get you started again these days.

> The computer we're talking about was built in 1997.  The battery has never 
> been replaced.
> 
> Thank you.

I can think of three failure modes with these symptoms:  dying power supply,
bad motherboard, and overheated cpu.  The overheated cpu usually exhibits
these symptoms upon reboot, but not if the computer has been allowed to
cool for awhile.  (Check the cpu fan for movement and lint build-up if
you think this might be it.  I have seen lint build-up between the fan
and the heatsink fins cause this.) The motherboard can cause this because
there are control signals that go from the motherboard to the power
supply that can interfere with the power supply operation.  In your
case, the power supply may just have reached end of life.

Good luck with it!

-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeff Newmiller                        The     .....       .....  Go Live...
DCN:<jdnewmil at dcn.davis.ca.us>        Basics: ##.#.       ##.#.  Live Go...
                                       Live:   OO#.. Dead: OO#..  Playing
Research Engineer (Solar/Batteries            O.O#.       #.O#.  with
/Software/Embedded Controllers)               .OO#.       .OO#.  rocks...1k
---------------------------------------------------------------------------