hello , i have finaly come to the conclusion that my problem is either a broken clip on the cmos battery or sadly a faulty motherboard.. there appears to be a broken clip or rather a clip broken off where the cmos battery sits, is there a safe way that i can make the battery sit in the holder correctly.. many thanks gemma

"All" the cmos battery does enable the bios to remember it's settings between bootups. Either faulty mobo OR the Cmos not seating is a bit like sying my car won't start - better check the tyre pressures. Anyway, delicate use of a soldering iron may well enable you to solve your problem (make sure you rub down the shiny metal otherwise the solder won't stick) Techy n Welsh

I would recommend replacing the battery holder. If the clip is broken soldering would not be a reliable repair. What you need is a holder with short wire leads to replace the broken holder.

Gemma If I recall correctly the time is saved correctly but not the date, or is it the other way around. Either way, this would indicate the battery is making contact, or neither would be saved. I think the BIOS chip is defective.

If you are handy with a soldering iron then fine. Otherwise you need to get some advice and practice on a few other things before you start. It can be quite tricky dealing with modern high density boards (even with experience). Derek.W

"It can be quite tricky dealing with modern high density boards (even with experience)." I fully concur. Even when it looks like a simple soldering job, motherboards are multi-layered. What looks like "it goes right through", ~may~ not always be the case. I replaced one cdrom burner with a newer model on someones system. I didn't take account of the new burner being 1/2" longer than the one I was pulling out. When I slid the drive in the bay, it hit a transistor on the mobo. (Uh oh.) I couldn't find ~anyone~ to even ~attempt~ a repair. I ended up buying a mobo for the client which matched his cpu, memory, etc. (Direct/comparable replacement. A better Asus board actually.) But the moral of the story is, "Things may not be as they appear Luke Skywalker". There went my profit for the job, PLUS COSTS. It took me 24 hours to locate/procure/switch everything, etc, but everything was right in the end. Except it cost me. (Young, foolish, etc.) ;>) It's a good day when you learn something

Well yes I remember trying to do this on an old OLIVETTI some years ago I had quite a compact soldering iron but I totally ruined the motherboard--- Perhaps taking this to a specialist repair shop might be a better option,,any way these parts are supposed to be repairable,especially when the battery is fixed to the "leg unit"