Rtc Battery Is Low Error Message

[ruggief]

Hello.
Error on screen says RTW is low. Press F2 to set date/time. I press F2 but nothing happens and after a few seconds the screen turns off. I have tried draining the laptop down and also charging for 12 hours and neither has fixed it. Any advice appreciated. It is a Toshiba Satellite L850. Many thanks

[Tuvok]

I suspect that it is the internal CMOS battery not the actual laptop battery.

I found this which seems to confirm my suspicions.

I haven't watched it yet, but suspect that it will be a CR2032 battery - available even from Poundland!

[RATTER15]

You found what?

[Tuvok]

???? Ratter15

[gingejbee]

^^^RATTER....it's known as "the missing link"....

[whiskeryron]

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Tuvok
I suspect that it is the internal CMOS battery not the actual laptop battery.

I found this which seems to confirm my suspicions. // ????????

[Buenchico]

'RTC' = 'real time clock', so it's the 'back-up' (CMOS) battery inside the laptop, which keeps things in memory even when it's switched off', which appears to have reached the end of its life.
http://www.laptopparts101.com/cmos-rtc-battery/

You need one of these
http://genuine-cmos-battery.co.uk/toshiba-satellite-l850_00q-cmos-battery.html
and either the confidence to fit it yourself or the services of a local computer technician. (It's a few minutes work. DON'T go to PC World, as they'll charge you £50, plus the cost of the part, for those few minutes. Find a local guy!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktURzL_sx-s

[ruggief]

Thank you Buenchico. I watched the link you posted and the battery is a CR2032. I've changed this and turned the laptop back on and have the same error message. Do I need to charge again or should it have worked straight away?

[Buenchico]

Hmmm.

It might be a fault with the circuitry which detects the power available from the battery (so that it thinks that any battery is duff, even when it's not). I hope not, as that could be tricky to fix.

In the short term, I'd simply leave the laptop on charge overnight and then try again. If that didn't work, I'd consider resetting the BIOS (since briefly having no power to it could well have caused problems):
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/restore-bios-default-toshiba-laptop-53617.html