Does low CMOS battery affect the OS and stability?

pronfs · 22-10-2008, 08:37 AM

Hi all,

I have an old Toshiba Satellite laptop (that belongs to a friend who have abandoned this machine for me to fix) that

I'm going to replace the CMOS battery for. Right when I turn the machine on it tells me to press F1 to enter BIOS

because of CMO read error or CMOS checksum error. I am convinced that once I change the battery this

particular problem will be gone. After all it has been used for many years.

Furthermore I have some suspicions though about the nature of this problem. The reason my friend ditched this

machine is because it would not boot up completely -

At some point while the winxp logo is shown during the startup process, a blue screen appears for about a TENTH of a

second, and the computer just simply resets/restarts itself.

My question is, could this problem have anything to do with the fact that the CMOS battery is low?

Any advice or insight is appreciated.

p.s. - the laptop itself is spyware/virus free.

**Strider** · 22-10-2008, 02:30 PM

Quote:

My question is, could this problem have anything to do with the fact that the CMOS battery is low?

I doubt that. Even without a Bios battery your PC should work with out much problems. There is a chance of broken softwares which uses the time.

You may change the battery now, we'll look in to the Windows BSOD problems separatly.

Btw. did you noticed the Blue screen error code?

Can you try logging in to the safe mode ( by pressing F8 during bootup)?

**bakuryu** · 22-10-2008, 02:32 PM

CMOS checksum error will most probably be solved after you replace the battery. For the other error, blue screen or the bsod can be either because of hardware failure/driver conflicts. You need to see the error message, STOP error code and the parameters, for that you need to disable Automatic restart on system failure. Go to Control Panel (if you cannot boot in normal mode, press F8 and boot in Safe mode) -> System -> Advanced, under Start up and Recovery click Settings, under System Failure, uncheck "Automatically restart". Click "OK" and close all windows. Next time you get a bsod, note down the error message, STOP error code and the parameters.

Techguy · 22-10-2008, 04:23 PM

Yes it Could, there's a very good possibility that it does. Configuration data (ESCD) is held in CMOS and necessary information may not be passed on to Windows.

**bakuryu** · 23-10-2008, 02:09 PM

Quote:

Yes it Could, there's a very good possibility that it does. Configuration data (ESCD) is held in CMOS and necessary information may not be passed on to Windows.

That's not likely to happen. the CMOS battery is used to preserve BIOS settings and maintain the clock when there is no power to the mainboard. Once the computer starts, the motherboard will draw necessary power for all it's operations. Unless it's a faulty mobo, which can't be concluded unless we get to know what BSOD error occurs (even then identifying whether it's a mobo or other hardware problem is not easy)

**stuartbe** · 24-10-2008, 03:02 AM

I would agree. sounds more like a bad sector on the hard drive to me. As stated the system retains its settings when powered on. ESCD is loaded in low address space on boot and isnt retained by the volitile memory on the motherboard.

A full checkdisk and maybe a disk checker like spinrite is whats needed

**Chef** · 29-10-2008, 10:34 AM

Change your battery and then update the time to the current and you shouldn't get any other problems

22-10-2008, 08:37 AM	#1
pronfs Newbie Join Date: Oct 2008 Posts: 1 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts Rep Power: 0	Does low CMOS battery affect the OS and stability? Hi all, I have an old Toshiba Satellite laptop (that belongs to a friend who have abandoned this machine for me to fix) that I'm going to replace the CMOS battery for. Right when I turn the machine on it tells me to press F1 to enter BIOS because of CMO read error or CMOS checksum error. I am convinced that once I change the battery this particular problem will be gone. After all it has been used for many years. Furthermore I have some suspicions though about the nature of this problem. The reason my friend ditched this machine is because it would not boot up completely - At some point while the winxp logo is shown during the startup process, a blue screen appears for about a TENTH of a second, and the computer just simply resets/restarts itself. My question is, could this problem have anything to do with the fact that the CMOS battery is low? Any advice or insight is appreciated. p.s. - the laptop itself is spyware/virus free.

22-10-2008, 02:32 PM	#3
bakuryu ƒ(ψ)=Θº×φ Join Date: May 2006 Location: India Age: 22 Posts: 5,214 Thanks: 13 Thanked 410 Times in 380 Posts Rep Power: 71 OS:	Re: Does low CMOS battery affect the OS and stability? CMOS checksum error will most probably be solved after you replace the battery. For the other error, blue screen or the bsod can be either because of hardware failure/driver conflicts. You need to see the error message, STOP error code and the parameters, for that you need to disable Automatic restart on system failure. Go to Control Panel (if you cannot boot in normal mode, press F8 and boot in Safe mode) -> System -> Advanced, under Start up and Recovery click Settings, under System Failure, uncheck "Automatically restart". Click "OK" and close all windows. Next time you get a bsod, note down the error message, STOP error code and the parameters. __________________ Please don't click here

22-10-2008, 04:23 PM	#4
Techguy Junior Member (25+) Join Date: Aug 2008 Age: 32 Posts: 39 Thanks: 0 Thanked 2 Times in 2 Posts Rep Power: 0	Re: Does low CMOS battery affect the OS and stability? Yes it Could, there's a very good possibility that it does. Configuration data (ESCD) is held in CMOS and necessary information may not be passed on to Windows. __________________ QA Test Management

24-10-2008, 03:02 AM	#6
stuartbe Moderator Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Luton UK Age: 33 Posts: 149 Thanks: 0 Thanked 7 Times in 4 Posts Rep Power: 0	Re: Does low CMOS battery affect the OS and stability? I would agree. sounds more like a bad sector on the hard drive to me. As stated the system retains its settings when powered on. ESCD is loaded in low address space on boot and isnt retained by the volitile memory on the motherboard. A full checkdisk and maybe a disk checker like spinrite is whats needed __________________ There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who dont !

29-10-2008, 10:34 AM	#7
Chef Hardware Support Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: C:/Program Files/Games/ Age: 16 Posts: 718 Thanks: 54 Thanked 21 Times in 21 Posts Rep Power: 8 OS:	Re: Does low CMOS battery affect the OS and stability? Change your battery and then update the time to the current and you shouldn't get any other problems __________________

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