BIOS Batteries Still Exist 0 ▲ Random Thoughts 1 hour ago · Tech · hide · 1 comments Above you see the nice li’l machine that has a nice SAS card that I’m using for my /dvd RAID (that, confusingly enough, has more ripped blurays than ripped DVDs now). Here’s the major, incredibly important problem: If there’s been a power outage (for instance, because I’ve had an electrician in to do something), the machine refuses to boot because the BIOS doesn’t know what date it is. I’m sure that’s really important! Oh my god! What would we do with a machine where the BIOS doesn’t know what the date is! The humanity! So I have to attach a keyboard and press F1 and then everything works, so (this is going to come as a shock to you all) it turns out that the machine works perfectly well without a BIOS that knows what the time is. I know! Who would have thought! After much googling, it turns out that this mainboard has a BIOS battery that’s glued to the audio headers (bottom right there). It’s a “wrapped CR2032”. And today I got this in the mail: Whoho! Time to become a computer… Log in to reply on the Fediverse. Comments will appear here. __Miguel_ @nanianmichaels@tech.lgbt 1 hour ago [-] Fun fact: those wrapped BIOS batteries are just regular 2032 batteries with terminals soldered to them.You can get MUCH cheaper replacements by just removing the wrap, breaking the weak solder points, putting a new 2032 battery in place of the old one, making sure the polarity is correct, and wrapping the whole thing in some sort of tape or shrink wrap, making sure each wire end has good contact with the corresponding part of the battery.I've successfully replaced that kind of BIOS battery twice, once on an old laptop, and more recently on an Intel NUC.
