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Battery Lifetime on "old" ml530-Server

 
CA1331555
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Battery Lifetime on "old" ml530-Server

We recently bought a ML530-Server in a good condition. The complete System in now set up.
But our worry is the Lithium Battery, that keeps the RTC or even BIOS settings.

Question 1: What is the lifetime of that battery?
Question 2: Will there be any Warning for low battery charging during up-time through the HP Agents? (all agents are well set up)
Question 3: Why this battery is fix on the board? - To reduce the risk of replacing the battery manual or is it loaded in background?

Thanks in advance for your answers!

Greetings... F. Wetzel
1 REPLY 1

Re: Battery Lifetime on "old" ml530-Server

The main purpose of the lithium battery is to keep the real time clock (RTC) going when there is no power to the server. â No powerâ here means that the power cord is NOT plugged into an electrical outlet. With the power cord is plugged into an electrical outlet, there will be a small amount of power supplied to the server. One of the uses of this small amount of power is to run the RTC. And as long as this small amount of power is available, the RTC will not draw power from the lithium battery.

Lithium batteries usually have a storage life of over ten years. Since most servers are usually always plugged in, even when they are switched off, there is little power drain from the lithium batteries and they will last a long time. â Long timeâ here means beyond the commercial lifetime of the server.

That is probably why the lithium battery is permanently mounted on the server mother board. They figured that the server would become obsolete and end up in the trash before the battery needed replacement. And because a removable battery holder costs more than hardwiring the battery to the mother board, they figured they could save a couple of cents.

The fist indication of a failing battery is the RTC runs slow, loosing a couple of minutes a day. You might not notice this if you have the OS set up to get the correct time from the net on a regular basis. The total failure of the battery will cause an error when you re-boot the server and the RTC has completely lost the time and date. The BIOS will ask that the correct date and time be manually entered. Then you will know that the lithium battery is completely dead and has to be replaced.

Richard Whitnable