Pro WS WRX80E-SAGE SE WIFI - glued bios battery to board

[HeroClass]

hello,

sorry if this is in the wrong part of the forum, please move to where appropriate if wrong.

i have spent 5 hours tearing down my computer and im here to cry/rant over what has happened to hopefully find some insight into what has happened...

Pro WS WRX80E-SAGE SE WIFI

i have a Pro WS WRX80E-SAGE SE WIFI motherboard

it has worked fine up until the last 2 weeks when the system clock started missing time and i had to auto set via windows sync timer.

this wasnt a problem, slowly though the clock was moving backwards each time and i have had experience with this issues in the past with other computers as being the bios battery.

the computer has worked fine for 3+ years and the configuration functions.

this is where things get really bad, and i mean REALLY WEIRD.

when i go to change the battery - it cannot be seen...i go to the manual and there are diagrams in the manual, but zero information about the battery.

which is odd right?

when i go to look at the board, there is a cover where the battery is, a plastic cover, THAT IS SCREWED INTO THE MOTHERBOARD FROM THE BOTTOM!

so for the first 2 hours, i research about this and cannot find any information. 

after researching, i have found that in order to get the plastic cover off i have to tear down my whole computer and then remove the 2 screws from the bottom of the motherboard!!

so i spend the next 3 hours disconnecting water cooling, plugs etc and then unscrew the motherboard from the base plate, turn over and then unscrew the screws that are holding in the plastic cover.

when i put the board down to inspect the battery - ITS GLUED TO THE PORTS ON THE BACK....

what evil monster did this too me? a $2000 motherboard that has a glued on battery!!!!

i have never heard or seen anything like this in 29 years of IT motherboards..

then i have to rebuild my machine only to get constant f3 errors and now the computer boots when it feels like this............

the supporting pictures are here....

why did you do this to me asus?

no im not sending the board back, too close to christmas, too expensive, cheaper to buy new mobo

https://imgur.com/gallery/asus-glued-bios-battery-to-back-ports-ZyyY7gZ

[HeroClass]

how come no reply from asus?

[HeroClass]

asus has not provided me with reply, im abandoning this thread, it is very disappointing.

[Silent_Scone]

Hi @HeroClass 

Apologies but this is a user-to-user section and this is a fairly niche platform. ROG Care has a service and hardware and support section.

I will move the post to this section.

[Gorsusa]

The thread is very much still open and active.

Abandoning the thread after only four short days and change doesn't seem like it is going to provide you with any benefit what so ever. You've not given it anywhere near enough time for anyone to reply with an even marginally useful response. Take a look at my response. I detail a remady for the problems that were caused by a depleted cell and the needlessly awkward way in which I was required to replace it. I offered help here to anyone else experiencing the same problem.

You have not even asked ASUS for a remedy, or asked them to provide any support to you as you have not addressed what you would like them to do to remedy the problem.

ASUS like everyone else are not mind readers, so you'd have to be specific in what you expect them to offer to remedy the problem that they have directly caused you (and everyone else with this motherboard). You'd also have to ask them directly for support via their web site through their dedicated customer support team, not just here on a community based self help forum, as @Silent_Scone has stated.

@HeroClass "what evil monster did this too me?"
- I doubt any ASUS employee would be directly targeting you as an individual. We are all suffering the fallout of this deliberate hostile design decision, so what kind of a response are you expecting from this?

@HeroClass "why did you do this to me asus?"
- Again, is this a rhetorical question?

@HeroClass "no im not sending the board back, too close to christmas, too expensive, cheaper to buy new mobo"
- So have you given up at the first hurdle within the first week, and instead decided to throw cash at the problem by buying a new motherboard instead of continuing to hold ASUS accountable and responsible, asking them directly for support? Maybe you simply don't relish the idea of ASUS asking you to return the board for a simple cell replacement? Who knows?

In your original post you have not asked anything of ASUS apart from the above, and the original post seems to simply be more of a rant than anything else, to which ASUS would most probably not grace a response anyway.

Have you contacted ASUS directly via their customer support team and asked for a remedy? I'm sure you'll find that you would get at least an automated response in the form of a ticket reference, even if it simply asks you to wait for your ticket to be assigned to one of their support staff. However, there is the possibility that you will be ignored in the same way that Stephen Burke (Gamer's Nexus) was, with his burnt out CPUs due to severe retail unit bugs on the ASUS motherboard BIOS which were 100% the responsibility of ASUS and their engineers, with their incompetence and oversights on no less than two resleases of the BIOS flashing images on their web site, the last of which was a beta, with which they were more than happy to retcon and gaslight their customers.

[Gorsusa]

I experienced exactly the same needless problem a week before Christmas, a problem which has no valid reason to exist, a problem which is 100% caused by ASUS's deliberate attempt at preventing the right to repair and their equally shameful planned obsolescence.

Accesible NVRAM/RTC backup cell holders are well established in motherboard equipment and have been for well over half a century, and the need for this is echoed in every industry, including entusiast, enterprise, and consumer equipment. There is no exception. There being "no room" for a cell holder on a motherboard is not a valid response or reason not to include one. There are countless simple, efficient and effective ways to ensure that an easily accessible cell holder is included, even if it's not attached directly to the surface of the motherboard.

Unfortunately it was an entire week before I could diagnose the problem correctly, and it cost me dearly with the downtime, inconvenience, hassle, and finacial detriment directly linked to this needless and deliberately hostile design decision by ASUS. Like you and every other person with this motherboard, we have it securely installed with no way to access the under side of the motherboard. This is normal practice for every motherboard in existence. There is no exception to this rule.

My problem started when the power to my system appeared to randomly fluctuate (our power here is conditioned and we also have UPS backups, so it was categorically NOT our electrical supply that was the cause of the problerm), causing complete motherboard resets (BIOS set to restore AC power after power loss). I was encountering Q Code 0d (which is not covered in the manual or anywhere else for that matter) and C5 errors during BIOS POST checks. I eventually decided to clear the BIOS NVRAM. I had to do this countless times, but still to no avail, and boot attempts continued to be unsuccessful. The BIOS configuration that was applied after restoring optimised defaults appeared to be saving properly when exiting the BIOS configuration screen and restarting, but on subsequent boot attempts it would behave in random and unpredictable ways, making the system unusable. I only managed to make the system semi-successfully boot into the OS a total of three times during multiple boot attempts over five days, and even that came with it's own weird and random problems, including excessive drive activity, excessive and unnecessary 'repair' activity during Q code 'AA' OS booting, excessive and unnecessary drive checking and repair activity, and significantly changed hardware warnings from the OS with the refusal to boot without providing the demanded input of encryption keys!

I decided to replace the BIOS NVRAM cell, only to be confronted with the same bad news that you discovered, the dreaded needless plastic shield that serves absolutely no purpose (covering the rear IO ports and BIOS NVRAM/RTC cell) and can only be removed after completely disassembling the machine and removing the motherboard entirely. I have rebuilt the system and installed the motherboard without refitting the useless "BUILT FOR PROS" plastic façade as it servers absolutely no practical purpose other than to needlessly prevent cell access, and it doesn't even direct any cooling, so there's that theory disproved too!).

What a sorry state of affairs! ASUS, you should be ashamed of yourselves. This should never happen with any equipment design, let alone workstation grade equipment!

I reluctantly disassembled the entire workstation build so that I could remove the motherboard, and proceeded to remove the useless plastic rear IO cover, only to be confronted with what can only be described as totally unnecessary and ridiculously strong HULK glue that was firmly and permanently attatching the BIOS NVRAM/RTC cell to the metal EMI shielding of the ethernet ports. Any attempt to remove the glue or cell has the distinct probability of risking permanent damage to the motherboard and/or it's components. Luckily I was able to use a soft headed tool to carefully pry between the glue, the cell's black plastic shrink wrap, and the ethernet port EMI shielding, without damaging the components or the motherboard.

I proceeded to carefully remove the cell's black plastic wrap (which was already partially removed due to the necessary prying), and then carefully peeled the metal tabs (atop and under the original cell on the negative and positive terminals) with filament cutters which were provided with a 3D printer (they acted as tiny pliers to peel the tabs back and roll the thin metal terminals away from the metal skin body of the cell) as I wanted to keep the entire fly lead assembly intact for easy reuse with a new cell. I observed polatity (light grey being positive, and black being negative in this instance), and then proceeded to roll and squash the thin metal terminals so that they could be placed on the centre of the appropriate flat circular terminal faces of a new replacement CR2032 3V lithium cell. I then wrapped the new cell and tabs tightly with electrical tape so that the rolled tabs made good contact with the centre of the faces of the new cell, which also ensured that the coiled and squashed tab terminations would not move around underneath the electrical insulation tape once it was tightly wrapped and secure.

That's how I fixed my ASUS Pro WS WRX80E Sage SE WiFi without going to all the unnecessary effort, wasting my time and bothering myself with what would prove to be an excessively long, drawn out, and arduous affair with ASUS if I were to contact support, which would likely conclude in either their ignorance, dismissal, or at best being shipped a replacement cell and fly lead which would take weeks to arrive. However, this DIY remedy should never have been necessary, and ASUS should have simply provided an accessible CR2032 holder embedded in the outer skin of the plastic rear IO shroud so that cell replacements are a simple affair just like any other motherboard, and not unnecessarily awkward, difficult, and ridiculous as we have now both experienced.

Shame on you ASUS. JayzTwo Cents v2.0 clone 😉

[HeroClass]

Praise the silicon gods!

in my pain and suffering, i am no longer alone! thank you for posting here..

excuse my rantish style reply...as im still bitter over this matter...

You had it just before Xmas! so did I! - I LOST MY .....SH-iver-IT when i saw the battery glued....who wants hardware problems at Xmas when the world shuts down (mostly) leaving possible downtime for weeks!

you came to the same conclusion i did - there is no valid reason for this battery problem to exist - battery swap out should be 5 minutes..(maybe 30 if you are really bad at hardware management)

what half decent engineer designer screws on a cover FROM THE UNDERSIDE that covers IO ports on the rear and the battery which you have to tear down the box in order to remove to get access to that part of the board! especially in a server environment!

....WHICH EVERYONE KNOWS the battery will needed to be replaced - running HUGE risks of damaging the motherboard in the process (ESD, bending pins, cpu etc) unnecessarily

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i FEEL YOUR PAIN with the downtime and losses - i lost 2 days, 1 diagnosing it and 1 day pulling down the machine and putting it back together because i have watercooling for my system - THANKFULLY i had quick disconnects for water cooling.

and yes i had the motherboard secured! of course - ALL motherboards (99.9%?) are secured when not in testing or box being put together, there is no reason for the board not to be secured (in fact i have never heard of a board not being secured, have you?)

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although i am no expert in board codes i did notice this board has spat a number of codes at me....which just did not need to happen....

i confirm the C5 board errors as well as f3 errors and in my experience after reseating the RAM and updating the bios - these all went away (thankfully because i have no idea what to do then- send the board back? weeks downtime? sigh)

recently i have had to push the clear cmos button and resave the bios(f10 + enter) and the system boots..

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sadly ( not really sadly ) i tossed the plastic cover back into the mobo box, there is no way on earth that i would put it back on, i will leave my board to be naked

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"What a sorry state of affairs! ASUS, you should be ashamed of yourselves. This should never happen with any equipment design, let alone workstation grade equipment!"

yes i agree with the above statement, i personally brought this equipment because i refuse to be locked into hardware restrictions like apple products - i brought this for upgradability and future proofing and maintainability
(expected life spean 12-15 years - like my last box)

and do not tell me it was an accident either, if you go to the product web page on the asus website, the background picture has the battery glued to the board in the promo pictures! (RANT: WHO GLUES THE BATTERY TO THE MOBO!!!!)

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YES - hulk glue! there is no better way to describe it...i had to force it with a flat top screw driver to loosen it

so yes, the initial "plastic cover- dismantle system and unscrewing from bottom of motherboard" was one thing - but the glue was a whole new level of "WTF - SOMEONE STOP ME FROM BUSTING THIS BOARD OVER THE ENGINEERS HEAD" - asus had better FIRE whoever authorised that in the design.

i was terrified that i would damage the back port when taking the battery off the back ports (not even sure if i did damage it in the process)

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yes i damaged the battery plastic as well, but if you get a new battery, that is not a problem...

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you went a step more than i did, i didnt by cutting the battery wires off the battery

as mentioned by you, just replace the battery and wire to the socket on the motherboard....i dont worry about polarity, because the socket only fits one way (i really should rewrite that line to agree with you, so that people check the polarity, how many people attach things wrongly, through utter ignorance or stupidity? - sigh)

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just a follow up, i contacted asus support, and they sent out replacement batteries (x2) - after a number of emails....
(it was just another level of difficulty dealing with asus ) - who wants to dig out serial numbers and model numbers and then submit the forms and then submit excel spreadsheets with replacement requests.

i should be able to pop in a 2032 battery and be on my way................

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congratulations on being a clone of "JayzTwo Cents v2.0" he seems like a nice guy, level headed, someone worthy of cloning, wish i could replicate his success, i have watched a few of his videos, and grateful for him (and to the million other youtubers who post videos about assembling computer parts)

im just bitter about youtube is all....and their stupid monetization requirements...(but thats another story)

i have a youtube video for you which i found in regards to asus - i found it while researching my problem before i posted this thread, this guy HAD IT WORSE!

019: Asus ROG Maximus Formula VI - Cmos Battery Armor problem! "PIECE OF ****** Mobo"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HexH9K4dSI

yes i confess (its 10 years old but just goes to show you this has been a problem for a while)

[HeroClass]

also can you please link me to what you use to cool the cpu? i am currently using water cooling but i may wish to change that, and when i brought the board years ago there wasnt that many heat sinks for the cpu - maybe that has changed

[Gorsusa]

@HeroClass"also can you please link me to what you use to cool the cpu?"
- I use IceGiant Prosiphon Elites with these boards. They can only be used in rack mount or flat motherboard orientation because thermosyphon cooling requires gravity to allow the evaporated fluids to condense and fall back down into the base of the heat sink chamber which is right up against the CPU IHS. The sWRX80 socket is 90 degrees rotated from the standard Threadripper orientation, so the cooling fluids do not condense back into the base of the heat sink like they would if it were installed in the standard Threadripper (non-Pro) orientation with the upright traditional tower case configuration.

If an upright tower case were to be specifically designed and produced to allow an sWRX80 motherboard to be installed in a 90 degree rotated orientation (either way), that would make the rear IO face the ground or the sky rather than facing the rear (or the front), there would be no problem using the Prosiphon Elite in these non-standard, speciality tower cases. For now though no tower case exists in commercial availability that allows a rotated motherboard orientation with the rear IO facing the ground or the sky to support Prosiphon Elite use with sWRX80 motherboards. I have no problem with this as my motherboards are all flat orientation configuration.

[Gorsusa]

@HeroClass "in my pain and suffering, i am no longer alone! thank you for posting here.."
- You're welcome. I saw that you were really pissed off and I felt the need to soothe. Mysery likes company, right?

@HeroClass "excuse my rantish style reply...as im still bitter over this matter..."
- There's no need to be bitter. ASUS won't feel compelled to pay more attention or suffer any more for it after all.

@HeroClass "what half decent engineer designer screws on a cover FROM THE UNDERSIDE that covers IO ports on the rear and the battery which you have to tear down the box in order to remove to get access to that part of the board! especially in a server environment!"
- Simple answer, no half decent engineer would do any of that. Only unscrupulous engineers paid to do as they are told and force unsuspecting customers into no right to repair and planned obselesence would do this.

@HeroClass"THANKFULLY i had quick disconnects for water cooling."
- EPDM and quick disconnects are nice. It's the second best option to thermosyphon cooling, and also has the added benefit of dumping heat externally rather than relatively locally.

@HeroClass"and yes i had the motherboard secured! of course - ALL motherboards (99.9%?) are secured when not in testing or box being put together, there is no reason for the board not to be secured (in fact i have never heard of a board not being secured, have you?)"
- Never, hence my statement about it in my first reply post. Although my TR Pro board was sat on my coffee table looking like some form of technological octopus for nearly two years. The thermosyphon served as the eyes, every port was occupied, and there were GPUs, SSDs and HDDs everywhere serving as the appendages. You couldn't see the oak coffee table for the sprawling thick wires from the 1600 Watt Titanium 98% efficiency GaN PSU, which serves as the octopus' arms.

@HeroClass "i confirm the C5 board errors as well as f3 errors and in my experience after reseating the RAM and updating the bios - these all went away (thankfully because i have no idea what to do then- send the board back? weeks downtime? sigh)"
- You'll need to make sure that you tighten the CPU in place as per the instructions. Something as simple as tightening out of sequence can cause the CPU to not seat properly against the socket spring pins, and this leads to all sorts of electrical test failures. Also something as simple as dust in a DIMM socket can cause memory test errors and Q Code BIOS POST problems. I mention this because I see your motherboard is in a dusty environment and it's not kept dust free as evidenced in your pictures.

@HeroClass"sadly ( not really sadly ) i tossed the plastic cover back into the mobo box, there is no way on earth that i would put it back on, i will leave my board to be naked"
- As stated in my first reply, the plastic shroud serves no purpose other than aesthetics.

@HeroClass"i was terrified that i would damage the back port when taking the battery off the back ports (not even sure if i did damage it in the process)"
- The stainless steel EMI shroud around the ethernet ports is fairly sturdy so you should not be able to damage that even with a flat blade tool whilst prying between that and the cell plastic shrink wrap. The only careful consideration to make there is that you should only apply finger clamping pressure of one hand to the ethernet shroud (not the motherboard), and hold the EMI metal shoud only, without putting pressure on the motherboard below. Transfering any prying force through the soldered sockets and metal EMI shroud to the motherboard will tug on the soldered connections of the ethernet sockets and shroud, resulting in catastrophic irrepairable damage to the multi-layered PCB of the motherboard.

@HeroClass"you went a step more than i did, i didnt by cutting the battery wires off the battery"
- I didn't cut the wires off the cell, I simply used a thin edged tool to lift the flat rectangular metal tabs that were spot welded on to the original cell, and then I rolled them around the nose of the tool I was using to remove them, whilst using the tool to peel the tabs carefully from the cell. The wires are completely intact and the cable has not been cut. The tabs are still attached to the end of the cell fly lead cable assembly, albeit with the tabs coiled and pressed against a new battery now (I have not had time, or the patience, to get my miniature spot welder and weld the tabs onto the new CR2032 3V lithium cell). Stretched electrical tape is more than enough to keep the the coiled metal tabs in the centre of each face of the cell. I have left the new cell wrapped in red tape on top of the ethernet shroud. Should it fall on to the motherboard it will not short anything electrically as it is electrically insulated with red electrical insulation tape in the same way that the original cell was insulated with it's black plastic shrink wrap.

@HeroClass "...i dont worry about polarity, because the socket only fits one way (i really should rewrite that line to agree with you, so that people check the polarity, how many people attach things wrongly, through utter ignorance or stupidity? - sigh)"
- It's not the socket that you have to be concerend about, it's the metal tab end of the fly lead cable assembly that connects to the cell surfaces. The larger and marked face of the cell is the positive. The smaller face that doesn't extend around the edge and is sometimes textured is the negative. These must be observed and connected to the correct wire in the cell fly lead cable assembly otherwise the BIOS NVRAM/RTC will fail 100%, and you may also damage other components. Supplying 3V to a motherboard PCB trace that doesn't specifically support injection of 3V is not good practice.

@HeroClass"just a follow up, i contacted asus support, and they sent out replacement batteries (x2) - after a number of emails....
(it was just another level of difficulty dealing with asus ) - who wants to dig out serial numbers and model numbers and then submit the forms and then submit excel spreadsheets with replacement requests."
- F dot dat as they say. Just do what I did and get another cell for pennies. It's not worth the hassle or time it takes when one could simply grab a cheap lithium cell with their groceries. I think this is similar to what someone was talking about when referring to Bill Gates... Why would he bend down and waste his time time to pick up a $100 note from the ground when in the same time it takes him to do so he would have normally earned anywhere between 100 to 1000 times that amount? Just walk past it and ignore it. I think the phrase is 'opportunity cost'.

@HeroClass"i should be able to pop in a 2032 battery and be on my way................"
- any 3V lithium cell will work. You could even use the AA sized 3V lithium cells, or even larger cells. It doesn't matter what you use, just as long as it's lithium 3V. CR2032, CR2025, CR2016, they are all compatible. The CR2016 might not last as long as it's a lot thinner and has less capacity of course.

@HeroClass"congratulations on being a clone of "JayzTwo Cents v2.0" he seems like a nice guy, level headed, someone worthy of cloning, wish i could replicate his success, i have watched a few of his videos, and grateful for him (and to the million other youtubers who post videos about assembling computer parts)"
- When mentioning JayzTwo Cents I was referring to his boycotting of ASUS products and never featuring them again on his channel due to the 2023 RYZEN motherboard debacle re: Steve from Gamer's Nexus. As you may be fully aware, I'm not literally a clone, I'm just calling out ASUS like he did.