I somewhat started a little side business fixes PCs for people. I call it IT Pros PC Repair. I (we) are focused on professional repair service at an economical cost. But besides that, I recently was working on a customers HP ze4900 laptop. She was telling me that the windows time changes on her laptop and she think that her CMOS battery is going bad.
When I initially looked at it the system clock in the BIOS was set to 1/1/04 12:00am. So I figured it could be her CMOS battery but I still booted into XP and the time never changed again on me. Even when I unplugged all power sources to let the CMOS battery drain but, when I booted again it didn't change at all. I could not duplicate the issue anymore. She said that she would be in Windows and the time would change right infront of her eyes. So I went ahead and popped it open to check out the type of battery. It was a Maxwell M1220 Rechargable battery. I gave the laptop back to her and said that to wait untill it happens again and the check the time in the BIOS to see if has changed as well. That would isolate the issue between the BIOS and Windows. Sure enough it did change as well. You are now thinking BIOS battery, right? So she brought it back to me and wanted to move forwarded to order a new battery. After searching for the same battery for over an hour, I found a new one on Ebay. So, I ordered it.
As I was waiting for the new battery I was researching any issues with time and date on this model of laptops. One site suggested it was a MOBO change, and another suggested a Trojan virus that sets the time 2 years back. I booted the laptop and checked the BIOS. The clock was stopped at yesterday when I shut it down. Hmmm, seems like some funky BIOS. I then started researching for BIOS update from HP site. The version on the laptop was F10 and the current was F16. So I went ahead with the flash. All seems better as of now. The monitor even looks sharper (that was a fix in F14) and the time in the bios actually moves now and has held the date and time so far. I'll wait until the battery arrives before closing the issue.
When I initially looked at it the system clock in the BIOS was set to 1/1/04 12:00am. So I figured it could be her CMOS battery but I still booted into XP and the time never changed again on me. Even when I unplugged all power sources to let the CMOS battery drain but, when I booted again it didn't change at all. I could not duplicate the issue anymore. She said that she would be in Windows and the time would change right infront of her eyes. So I went ahead and popped it open to check out the type of battery. It was a Maxwell M1220 Rechargable battery. I gave the laptop back to her and said that to wait untill it happens again and the check the time in the BIOS to see if has changed as well. That would isolate the issue between the BIOS and Windows. Sure enough it did change as well. You are now thinking BIOS battery, right? So she brought it back to me and wanted to move forwarded to order a new battery. After searching for the same battery for over an hour, I found a new one on Ebay. So, I ordered it.
As I was waiting for the new battery I was researching any issues with time and date on this model of laptops. One site suggested it was a MOBO change, and another suggested a Trojan virus that sets the time 2 years back. I booted the laptop and checked the BIOS. The clock was stopped at yesterday when I shut it down. Hmmm, seems like some funky BIOS. I then started researching for BIOS update from HP site. The version on the laptop was F10 and the current was F16. So I went ahead with the flash. All seems better as of now. The monitor even looks sharper (that was a fix in F14) and the time in the bios actually moves now and has held the date and time so far. I'll wait until the battery arrives before closing the issue.
1 comment:
Hey fellow Redbird, thanks for the post. I am struggling with the same issue on a friends laptop. Went through the hassle of replacing the CMOS battery to no avail. Followed up with the BIOS upgrade from F10 to F16. Still no luck. I am now at a loss....
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