System Clock

[scotman]

Over the last month or so the clock on my PC has started to go slightly fast. Does this mean the battery is running out? I thought clocks went slow when battery is running down.

[rojash]

As they don't have motors, PC clocks don't slow down when the battery is low, they just become inaccurate. You haven't said what kind of computer you have or what operating system, but most XP machines automatically synchronise to an internet clock periodically. Are you sure that the clock is running fast? What are you comparing it to? It's more likely that your reference source is running slow - especially if it's the time signal on a DAB radio.

[Hymie]

Could well be the battery.

To void loosing all your BIOS settings, change the battery with the PC powered.
Take extra care not to short anything (including the battery) – if you need to use a tool to extract the battery, be sure it’s made of insulating material.
Others might disagree, but it could be a lot easier than trying to find what your BIOS settings were, or even recording what they are and resetting them.

[ChuckFickens]

Nooooo!!!

Do not do as hymie suggests!!! (sorry hymie I normally respect your advice but things have moved on since that method would even be considered)

it's incredibly rare for most people these days to have their bios set to anything other than default settings so removing the battery wont change anything.

[AlBags]

You should replace bios battery when switched off. You should also load up Bios screen on startup after battery change and select Load Default Settings, but most will restart ok without. Try it! If will not load to Windows desktop, boot again into Bios and do as I said.

[Hymie]

If you haven’t changed your BIOS settings – or haven’t a clue what they are, then I would agree with ChuckFickens that you will not need to reset any BIOS settings – and can ignore my advice to change the battery with the machine powered.

The last time I replaced a battery it was on a system running Windows98, and had changed all sorts of BIOS settings to make the PC run, as I wanted.

The worst that will happen is that your machine will not know what time it is, and in what time zone – but it will prompt you for this info.