I had something kiind of similar once, where it would only boot after trying to boot once, letting it run a bit in idle, and then rebooting where it would actually succeed. Turned out I forgot to put the clear cmos jumper back to neutral after i reset cmos.
So my best guess (other than new battery) is check the jumpers maybe
Wouldn’t surprise me if many young people can’t, I’m on the edge between millenial and gen z and reading an analog clock always needs some active effort. I’ve always preferred digital so I never really had to read analog clocks besides the one that hung in our kitchen and that one time I had a watch. Oh and the train stations still all have analog.
Kitchen clocks, if they aren’t just the oven or microwave, are probably becoming rarer, so when your watch is also digital, you’d never really encounter analog if it’s not somewhere in the public space, which will probably depend on where you live.
I’d guess most kids probably still can read one with effort because at least when there’s a second hand (since you can easily see it move) it’s kinda self explanatory, and it probably got explained in school once.