NEW!! - System battery low voltage alert (read this!!)

Hi,

I work for a company in Europe who is under contract to test and repair the full range of Dell desktops and servers. The main source is Europe but we also recieve untis from South Africa and sometimes from the Arab states. Firstly dont ask me for the company name because i will not disclose it as I do not intend to get into trouble with my bosses.

Reading the other thread on this system alert is very interesting, espically the part about the surge protecters. Where Dell get's this information from i do not know. The battery voltage low alert is due to one of two problems, the sensing circuit on the motherboard or the battey itself. The sensing circuit on the motherboard has a minimum voltage threshold of 2.7V to 2.9V (varies due to age of board). Anything below that and you will get the battery voltage low alert every time you power on your computer.  99% of the boards that have come in for this low voltage alert has been fixed by replacing the battery. We measure the new battery and they all read 3.2V. To get the motherboard to recognise this new battery properly you have to power cycle the computer 3 times (switch it on, get it to POST then switch it off again). After the third power cycle the low voltage alert message should disappear. If the alert message still displays, double check the output voltage of the replacement battery. It should read anywhere from 3V to 3.2V. If it does then the sensing circuit on the motherboard it faulty.

The reason why i have serious doubts about the surge protection idea is because the motherboard is powered by the case power supply. The power supply has it own surge protection built in so any external surge protection allegedly affecting the motherboards cmos battery is useless because no external incluences would get through to the motherboard because the case power supply would do its own surge and voltage filtering preventing anything unwanted getting through.

If using surge protecters DOES have an impact on the voltage low system alert then in my opinion Dell are using a sub standard case power supply.

regards PB