mother board battery problems

I have a P III 700 MHz PC with AMI BIOS on it. I have 15 GB HDD and win 98SE and RH Linux 7.2 installed on it. For thelast 3 months i have been replacing battery of motherboard. and it is consumed within a month. Please help me.

Do you regularly unplug or turn power coming to your PC off?

It shouldnt be using it that quick even if you have the system unplugged for an entire month. Is the motherboard still under warranty, if so i would have it checked. You may also find external battery connector on your board. if you have no luck using the internal one then you can try getting a pack to plug into the connector.

When you put in the battery, how are you handling it. The round coin lithium batteries used in most modern motherboards should not be touched since the oil from our fingers can cause it to loose connection and report it as dead. You should be using a clean lint free cloth to handle the battery to ensure oil from your hands doesnt effect the battery.

I worked for Radioshack in Australia for 2 1/2 years, selling batteries is something we did a lot of

You can also try this. Leave your computer on for several days straight, that has fixed the exact problem for several of my customers.

I have also heard of several mobo manufacturers that have bios upgrades to fix that problem on their boards. ECS pops to mind right away.

For the old rechargeable batteries leaving it on for a few days works a treat. The newer boards are lithium batteries which are not rechargable.

They like making us waste our money

No they are not.

The old batteries were nickel-cadium (NiCad) and had a limited life due to the battery building up a memory effect (ie not holding any charge). They also only lasted about 2 months if the pc wasnt used. They were also a pain to replace since most of them are soldered onto the main board

Lithium batteries normally last about 4-5 years and dont build up a memory since they are not rechargable. They also normally last about 6 months if the pc isnt used. They are easy to replace since most manufacturers use the simple clip in holder.

Which one would you prefer?

i take that back

Lithium ion batteries are quite rechargable but you are correct in that they do not suffer the "memory" affect.

Lithium Ion are reachargeable, Lithium are not. There is a lot of difference between them. The ones I am referring to are just Lithium.

I assume you mean lithium manganese dioxide then? Photo industry's fault that, calling Li/MnO2 and even Li/SO2 and lithium-iodide batteries just "lithium".

I wasn't aware MB manufacturers had moved away from rechargables, I never had a PC powered down long enough for it to matter...

I find the "6 month" lifetime a bit hard to swallow, tho. The low power drain required should mean they last longer and I know many PCs that are powered off more than half the time. That would make the battery life only 12 months....

I agree. At home I have an old Pentium system that I fire up every once in a while, and often it sits for several months off and unplugged. ive never had to replace its batteries.

I purchased my PC in Aug 2000 and replaced the MB battery First in Dec 2002 and then in starting of Feb2003 and now it is dead again. I handle bateries as safely as I can. I can't leave my PC on for months.