motherboard's battery draining unusually fast.

[quicky008]

I bought a gigabyte b75m d3h motherboard a couple of months ago-a few days after purchase the factory installed cr2032 battery on the mobo went bad and the mobo was losing all BIOS settings every time the pc was restarted.So i replaced the old cr2032 battery with a new maxell cr2032-however that too barely lasted 1 month and the same problem started again-ie cmos settings were lost on turning off/restarting the pc.I checked the 'VBAT'reading using hwinfo when this problem surfaced and it displayed 3.14V(it was 3.33v when the battery was installed).

After encountering this issue the second time,i replaced the maxell battery with a duracell cr2032 battery (that i bought from ebay),hoping that it would last longer as duracell's batteries are quite popular due to their longevity.When i installed the battery on sunday(21st jan),it read 3.33V but today it seems to have dropped to 3.31V(acc. to hwinfo)-assuming the battery keeps draining by 0.02v every 3-4 days,it seems likely that this battery too will be depleted by the end of feburary/beginning of march.


I wonder what could be causing the batteries to drain at such a fast rate-usually good cr2032 batteries last for atleast 3-4 years(if not longer).Is the mobo defective or are the batteries themselves of poor quality?I remember reading somewhere that a short circuit on the mobo could cause the battery to drain quickly-but how can i check whether there is a short circuit or not?My system appears to be working just fine otherwise.Would the motherboard still have functioned correctly if it was shorted somewhere?Please advice how can i resolve this issue,thanks.

 

[patkim]

The probability that all 3 batteries were too bad is very less I guess.
A time expensive test you may like to run is operate your PC without cabinet for a few days and test if battery survives. Ideally you should have a good test bench like a table and nearby power socket to setup your PC outside of cabinet effectively.

If battery survives may be the short might have been somewhere between standoff / studs and screws and chassis/cabinet most likely. May not be applicable if you have plastic standoffs.

If the battery still fails you might have some issue with the board. If I correctly understand the battery is supposed to be operational only when PC is off. It might be also getting connected to some other part of the board or some fault somewhere in chip is causing more drain of charge from the battery.

Get your earthings checked with electrician. How are you normally switching off your PC. Do you eventually switch off the mains button, or leave the SMPS powered on even if PC is shut down?

Also try connecting RAM to another RAM slot. Some boards sometimes say a requirement that if only one or two RAM sticks are to be installed, install them at slots 1 only or 1-2 or something like that. Do check if any such thing is applicable. Just a guess though, don't know if this action would be really relevant!

Try to get some support from motherboard manufacturer if the board is under warranty. Not too sure how much helpful would that be but give it a try.

 

[quicky008]

Thanks a lot for replying,patkim.I have a corsair spec 1 case and the standoffs/risers were already pre-installed in it-it was only a matter of lining up the motherboard's screw holes with the appropriate risers and putting it properly in place.Others have also suggested me to operate the pc without cabinet for a while but its quite difficult for me to do so on a long-term basis as there's not enough room on my desk to place all the peripherals(eg power supply,mobo,gpu,input devices,hdd etc)in an organized fashion.Do you think any of the unused risers on the mobo's tray might be touching the motherboard and causing the short?Its quite difficult to determine without dismantling the motherboard from the cabinet.

As far as my earthing is concerned,i think its ok-i also have another pc connected to the same ac wall outlet as this one and so far i haven't experienced any grounding related issues with that (such as cabinet giving off electric shock on being touched,motherboard's battery related issues etc).I suppose if the earthing was faulty i think i would have observed some signs of it by now-but i will still try to get it checked by an electrician just in case.

And when i switch off my pc i usually switch off everything-including my mains button,ups as well as the pc itself-this pc is used for around 7-10 hrs daily and stays idle during the remaining period.

Also i seem to have two 4gb dimms installed on slots 3 and 4 of my mobo(acc. to cpu-z)-but i dont know whether this could cause any issues or not so i will have to check the mobo's manual once.

Is there any foolproof way to check for the presence of a short on the motherboard?And if my motherboard does turn out to be faulty,should get it RMA'd?

 

[whitestar_999]

Don't switch UPS/mains/smps off(just shutdown from windows) & see the result after few days.

 

[quicky008]

sounds like a good idea,will try that.

 

[patkim]

You may (only if you are familiar and comfortable) at least once try to re-seat the motherboard. Check if there's any dust accumulation anywhere on the board and try to take care of that. This will also give you opportunity to carefully inspect the board, standoffs, also if you notice any scratches or such anomalies on it.

Temporarily disconnect front USB leads from the board (if you have any) for a few days.

As you have clarified that you shut down the mains supply, I was eventually coming to the same point whitestar_999 already stated. Leave mains ON while you just do a shut down from Windows.

Also I suggest you open a ticket with the Gigabyte tech support seeking further clarification as to why all batteries are draining so fast. Hope that you get a meaningful reply from them!

 

[rohitshakti_sehgal]

Gigabyte mobo's have this problem in 5% mobos. I had this problem and hence Gigabyte replaced my mobo but in the 2nd mobo too, there was this problem, as in replacement, they don't give you new mobo but a repaired one, which I found out later.

After the warranty was over, that mobo also developed that problem. Later I replaced it with another upgraded mobo which worked fine.

 

[bssunilreddy]

I bought a gigabyte b75m d3h motherboard a couple of months ago-a few days after purchase the factory installed cr2032 battery on the mobo went bad and the mobo was losing all BIOS settings every time the pc was restarted.So i replaced the old cr2032 battery with a new maxell cr2032-however that too barely lasted 1 month and the same problem started again-ie cmos settings were lost on turning off/restarting the pc.I checked the 'VBAT'reading using hwinfo when this problem surfaced and it displayed 3.14V(it was 3.33v when the battery was installed).

After encountering this issue the second time,i replaced the maxell battery with a duracell cr2032 battery (that i bought from ebay),hoping that it would last longer as duracell's batteries are quite popular due to their longevity.When i installed the battery on sunday(21st jan),it read 3.33V but today it seems to have dropped to 3.31V(acc. to hwinfo)-assuming the battery keeps draining by 0.02v every 3-4 days,it seems likely that this battery too will be depleted by the end of feburary/beginning of march.


I wonder what could be causing the batteries to drain at such a fast rate-usually good cr2032 batteries last for atleast 3-4 years(if not longer).Is the mobo defective or are the batteries themselves of poor quality?I remember reading somewhere that a short circuit on the mobo could cause the battery to drain quickly-but how can i check whether there is a short circuit or not?My system appears to be working just fine otherwise.Would the motherboard still have functioned correctly if it was shorted somewhere?Please advice how can i resolve this issue,thanks.

I can think of the following causes:
1) motherboard is not grounded. Hence there is short circuiting.
2) The battery holder circuitry is faulty.
3) Gigabyte deserves some A$s-kicking...

Other solutions:

1. Reset the BIOS to defaults (option in the BIOS), save and reboot.
2. If that doesn't work, try (re)flashing the BIOS with the latest version offered by the Motherboard manufacturer (Gigabyte).Latest Bios Link:GA-B75M-D3H (rev. 1.0) | Motherboard - GIGABYTE India
3. If that doesn't help, RMA the motherboard.

 

[quicky008]

The last time i replaced the motherboard's battery was in January of this year. I haven't had to replace the battery again since then-if it depletes soon then i suppose i will have to RmA the motherboard.