The battery in your computer is a coin cell. It's either a silver oxide battery or an alkaline battery. Chances are that is it has a model number like CR-2032, which is a very popular battery for motherboards. The battery is used to keep a small current of electricity running at all times to maintain the computer'sBIOS settings. I've had motherboard batteries last up to 10 years, or so, but I usually change them when I'm doing a major upgrade of the computer-- it's just easier, because a lot of stuff is disassembled. For example, if I were to replace a CPU, then I likely would change the battery.