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TIL that a bad CMOS battery can mimic a motherboard failure
Spent 3 hours troubleshooting a no-post machine last week, swapping PSUs and RAM, before realizing the dead CR2032 was causing the BIOS to reset and hang on boot - has anyone else wasted a whole afternoon chasing ghosts from a $3 battery?
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the_emma1mo ago
Yeah that "swapping PSUs and RAM" bit hit close to home. My buddy Dave was building a new gaming rig a few months ago and it just would not post no matter what he tried. He literally replaced the motherboard thinking it was dead, then the CPU, then started RMAing the power supply. After a week of frustration and a hundred bucks in return shipping fees, his tech-savvy cousin stopped by and swapped the little coin battery on the old board. Booted up first try. He still had to ship back the replacement motherboard and eat the restocking fee which was brutal.
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