220-1101 · Question #269
When a PC is turned on, an error indicates that the date and time are wrong. Which of the following is the most likely cause?
The correct answer is C. CMOS battery failing. The date and time settings on a PC are maintained by the CMOS battery on the motherboard, so a persistent error indicating incorrect date and time points to a failing or dead CMOS battery.
Question
When a PC is turned on, an error indicates that the date and time are wrong. Which of the following is the most likely cause?
Options
- AOverheating RAM DIMMs
- BHDD crash
- CCMOS battery failing
- DCapacitor swelling
How the community answered
(25 responses)- B4% (1)
- C96% (24)
Why each option
The date and time settings on a PC are maintained by the CMOS battery on the motherboard, so a persistent error indicating incorrect date and time points to a failing or dead CMOS battery.
Overheating RAM DIMMs would cause system instability, crashes, or boot failures, not specifically incorrect date and time settings.
An HDD crash would prevent the operating system from loading or cause data loss, but it wouldn't directly affect the system's date and time stored in the BIOS.
The CMOS battery (often a CR2032 coin cell) on the motherboard provides power to the Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) memory chip, which stores the BIOS/UEFI settings, including the system date and time. When this battery fails, the BIOS loses its configuration, causing the date and time to reset each time the PC is powered off.
Swelling capacitors on the motherboard indicate a power delivery problem and can cause various system instabilities or failures, but are not the primary cause for only the date and time resetting.
Concept tested: CMOS battery function
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