Tecra s2: date time reset at every boot

[booboo1342]

toshiba tecra s2: bios-date-time is resetted at every boot, though CMOS-Battery meters O.K. (3,15V), can it be that the CMOS-Battery is still too less charged or defective (too high internal resistance) after a long non-usage period? thanx for advice!

 

[WR2]

Hello booboo1342;
You're right. CMOS battery the #1 suspect.
The battery is OK while powered up, but probably not OK when battery/AC not connected.

 

[booboo1342]

Hello booboo1342;
You're right. CMOS battery the #1 suspect.
The battery is OK while powered up, but probably not OK when battery/AC not connected.

Hello WR2,
thank you for the quick reply! I forgot to state that i measured the battery when powered off (actually with the laptop completely disassembled, since the battery is located near the SD-slot, accessible from below the mainboard, the latter detached from the base cover - tough piece of work btw.). What I'll try next is leave the laptop powered on for an extended period of time (several hours) with AC-adapter plugged in, in order to charge the CMOS-battery completely (I read that the CMOS-battery can only be charged in this mode on Toshiba models). If that won't help I suspect the best option would be a CMOS-battery change. At least I'm skilled at disassembling / reassembling meanwhile!
Cheers!

 

[WR2]

Yes;
That does shed a different light on things.
Your plan for the next step is the best I could have suggested as well. It could very well work.

 

[frozenlead]

Some manufacturers use non-rechargeable batteries for their CMOS batteries, so charging it may not do anything.
Where are you measuring the voltage from? Even if the battery is good, they way it connects to the board may not be.

 

[booboo1342]

Some manufacturers use non-rechargeable batteries for their CMOS batteries, so charging it may not do anything.
Where are you measuring the voltage from? Even if the battery is good, they way it connects to the board may not be.

Hi frozenlead, WR2,

sorry for taking so long to get back to you, I tried a few things meanwhile (including a BIOS-upgrade to the latest version 2.80).
I measured the CMOS-battery voltage directly at the pins respectively at the soldering pads of the mainboard (the RTC-battery is a rechargeable type according to the Toshiba manual). I could not check the conducting paths any further since I got no schematics of the board. But obviously the CMOS-reset is not due to the battery, since the change of the battery brought no solution. I suppose there has to be another fault resulting in the reset. Maybe the operating system (Win XP pro SP3) or some other piece of malicious software interferes with the BIOS-settings (Windows actually has writing access, if I'm right). What substantiates my suspicion is that everything's O.K. when I detach the harddisk. Without the system disk there is no reset, even when I pull out the AC-adapter and the laptop battery in the meantime!

Thank you for your advice!
Cheers!