I am running a 486 DX66 with 20mb ram with Windows 95. When I restart my computer every day I now notice that my clock time (in the system tray) has lost ground. It can be anything from two to eight hours out. The strange thing is that if I have the computer off, for example, for six hours, the clock is not always six hours behind. (When the computer is on, the time is accurate). Does this mean that my computer battery is failing? Or could some program be interfering with the clock? (I won’t list them all but I did notice the problem seemed to occur after I installed WordPerfect 8 and Windows Messaging - but that could be a coincidence). If it does mean my computer battery is failing, are they expensive to replace and can I do it myself? I am fairly computer-literate.

Firstly check that the time zone you have selected Windows to operate under is correct. Double click on the clock in the system tray, click the ‘Time Zone’ tab and make sure the setting is ‘GMT +10:00 Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney’ (depending on where you are). It is unlikely that your computer’s battery is failing but if the above method doesn’t work that is the only other likely explanation for your problem. This sort of battery is not expensive to replace. As long as you know where the battery on the motherboard is located it shouldn’t be a very difficult task to change. Before you do this I suggest that you test the old battery with a multimeter.