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I spent 5 hours on a laptop that just needed a BIOS battery, and I still don't know if I was wrong
Customer drops off a Dell Latitude that won't keep time and boots to a weird error every morning. I reseat RAM, swap the drive, run diagnostics twice, even reinstall Windows, nothing. Turn on the bench at hour 5 and the clock resets again, so I finally pop the bottom cover and the CMOS battery reads 2.1 volts. Two dollar coin cell, done in 5 minutes. Now here's the debate: one camp says always check the cheap stuff first, the other says a clock drift is too obvious and you'd look like an amateur guessing. I get that a 5 hour teardown is bad for business, but part of me thinks chasing the fancy fix first actually teaches you more about the machine. Which side are you on, do you run the basic checklist no matter what, or do you trust your gut and go deep first?
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alice33610d ago
Wait, you reinstalled Windows before you checked the CMOS battery? That is wild to me. A clock that resets and a weird boot error every morning is like the textbook signature of a dead coin cell, it is literally the first thing I would have looked at. Five hours and a full OS reinstall for a two dollar part hurts to even read about.
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