Shoutout to the client who swore his gaming PC was fried after a power surge, but it was just a $15 CMOS battery

I was ready to quote him for a new motherboard last Thursday until I checked the battery voltage and saw it was at 0.8V, which reset his BIOS and made everything seem dead.

3 comments

3 Comments

noah_davis2mo ago

That battery voltage is actually still high enough to keep the BIOS settings. A dead CMOS battery usually reads below 0.5 volts.

schmidt.eva2mo agoTop Commenter

Well, @noah_davis, my old motherboard begs to differ.

olivia_hernandez1mo ago

Below 0.5 volts" is just a rule of thumb, not a hard cutoff.