What happens if I have to replace my CMOS battery?

I seem to remember it is bad and/or not fun, but I have never kept a mobo long enough to need to replace the battery so I have never actually found out what happens.

My old mobo finally having trouble keeping the time and date, which I know is a definite sign the board's battery is about to crap out. Is there anything I should watch out for when replacing it? I'm sick of having to keep resetting my date and time every day, it's literally like 30 hours behind on the correct time whenever I start up after being powered off for a day. If I just restart or shut down for a few minutes the clock stays ok. Would like to have properly functioning date/time again!

Generally you just replace the battery, reset the time and tell it to re-detect your HDDS.

If you've made performance tweaks to your BIOS settings, best to note them down now.

Note - let the computer cool before pulling the battery - they're suprisingly warm.

Your CMOS battery is always "on" no matter if your computer is on or not, so there's no point in letting your computer cool.

Yes, the battery won't generate much heat by itself, but all the stuff around it can make it get pretty hot while the computer's on, at least with some motherboards (and badly ventilated cases that aren't so uncommon among prebuilt desktops).

Cool thanks, I couldn't remember if windows would get screwed up or not, gonna get me a battery today ^_^.

The most it will do is reset your BIOs settings. So if you have customized your settings any, jot them down.

If you are speedy, you can swap the battery before the CMOS memory loses its contents.
If you're not so speedy, you'll have to re-enter your BIOS settings.