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My girlfriend just sent me the following photo:

Over nine thousaaaaand

Apparently that was what greeted her, along with a load of license expiry warnings, when she booted her laptop this morning. She then rebooted to be told it was now 2001. I believe it then died, and it now won't boot. It's a 2009-ish white Macbook running Windows 7 Pro 64-bit.

I'm at work so I'm looking for any ideas as to what has gone horribly wrong before I try to troubleshoot it tonight. All help is greatly appreciated!

Update: Apparently it boots into OS X fine, but still has a system clock of 2001. I'm guessing the motherboard battery died, though I won't know until later.

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  • 5
    that is beautiful, I have never seen it go into the future when the battery dies, usually it goes back to Dec 31st 1969
    – madmaze
    May 9, 2012 at 9:45
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    Yep, definitely looks like a dead or dying CMOS battery. Get it replaced.
    – Indrek
    May 9, 2012 at 9:57
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    Looks like they're ~£15, so this is a job for the Apple store as the laptop is still (just) inside its warranty. Will update with an answer once it's fixed!
    – robotmay
    May 9, 2012 at 10:49
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    Crap, you have a time machine, don't fix it!
    – Moab
    May 9, 2012 at 14:04
  • Something's strange -- though the symptoms do point to the CMOS battery, the CMOS battery should last 5 years or longer. May 9, 2012 at 18:40

1 Answer 1

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The CMOS battery on the motherboard is (nearly) depleted and must be replaced.

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