Laptop BIOS clock resets on reboot?

Question

I have a fairly new Sony Vaio laptop that had some power problems, and they put in a new motherboard yesterday. It fixed my old problems, but now the clock is acting weird. The BIOS clock gets reset whenever I restart the computer, and the Windows time is slow: For example, it lost 40 minutes after being left on for 3 hours. Sometimes the Windows date changes to strange values, like making the year 2017.

From searching around, it looks like there is something wrong with the CMOS battery. Most places I read talked about it being too old and failing, but mine should be brand-new. So what I want to know is:

1. Is it possible there was something that needed to be done to enable the battery when the motherboard was being installed? Like a tab needs to be pulled or a jumper needs to be changed somewhere? Is it something I could conceivably fix myself?

2. Is it dangerous to run the computer with the system time unstable? I'm worried about programs getting confused thinking it's 2017 and wanted to delete files more than 5 years old, or something like that.

Answer 1

If you didn't try it already; try removing the battery on your motherboard and putting it back in. If that doesn't work, try getting a new battery. Something similar happened to me once when I got my new ThinkPad, and replacing the battery with a new one fixed it. If that doesn't work; just send it back to the manufacturer. Seeing that the laptop is new, you should still be covered by the manufacturer's warranty.

Answer 2

I'd do what @Randolph Potter suggested. I thin that this could be a problem with real-time clock on the motherboard. Even if the battery is bad, that shouldn't impact time measurement while computer is running. The clocks SRAM would be erased, but once it's started working, it should be able to properly keep time.

Also check for Internet time synchronization. For windows Vista/7 click on the clock and go to change date and time settings. There go to Internet time and click change settings. See what address is there. It should be something like time.windows.com or pool.ntp.org. If it isn't change it to one of those addresses (first id windows default, but it points to second) and click update now.