I changed the battery with a brand new one. It has a PIII 733mhz processor. 512 of ram. The battery is a CR2032. Could it be because I have a 133mhz front side bus processor running on pc100 ram? I doubt it because my friend has a PIII 933 running PC100. any ideas? I bought it used so anythings possible. its an Abit-WB6
The FSB has nothing to do with the real-time clock. If the battery is good, it should be OK. Make sure that the CMOS-clear jumper is in the "normal" position and not the "clear" position and that the button cell is OK. I usually test them under load with a two-cell penlight bulb applied momentarily.
Does it hold the other settings? If so, the clock part may have locked up for some reason (unusual, but it does happen), requiring that the CMOS be cleared and re-doing the setup.
Another possibility is that the clock crystal is broken or loose. Most clock crystals are32,768 Hz quartz "tuning forks" in a small, cylindrical metal tube located near the button cell. Look and see if it has come loose in handling from being bumped around--it happens. They are a standard part and can be found, for example, in a broken or dollar-store digital watch.
