The wife's finally persuaded me to box up 2 very old PC's which are cluttering one of our spare rooms. They've both been left plugged into the mains until now but I'm intending to box them up and leave them in the loft until I decide what to do about them. My question concerns the Bios backup batteries. The older of the two machines is a Compaq Deskpro 575 (W3.1) and the other is a 1999 vintage Dell (W98). I have no idea what's in the Compaq but think the bios/backup battery has long since died as every time I turn it it bleeps a lot and I have to reset the time/date etc. before it'll boot up. IIRC the Dell uses a button cell which seems to still be working as it boots OK. I don't want to risk the batteries leaking while in storage so am wondering if it'd be best to remove them or if doing this could cause problems if I need to access either machine at some future point. Any advice (except "just get rid of the bloody things FGS!!!") welcome.
