early '09 2.4 macbook unibody won't keep time with battery out

I have begun using my macbook as just a desktop replacement a lot lately and recently removed the battery to conserve the cycle count numbers (the continous discharge/recharge to hopefully prolong its life a bit). Each time I start up I get a message saying my time/date is set before 2001 and how some programs might not behave properly. That is an understatement; as I get basic things that don't work at all. For example, airport. When I connect to the internet via my D-Link DIR-655, it contects, but local only with no internet access. Each time I reset the time, well it doesn't work again unless I restart my machine. And when I connect my WD My Book for Mac for the first half hour to 45 minutes I the drive access doesn't slow one bit, and uses continual processing power (at least 25-40%, while accessing the disk). I presume all of these are due to my date resetting back to ancient times. Is this normal when you remove the battery?

You can read varying accounts about this. Some say that removing the battery is best for the health of it if you don't need its power, rather than trickle charging it automatically every few days or so when the level drops to below 97% of its capacity and then automatically starts trickle charging back to full. I thought there was another internal battery on the mainboard or something, like PCS have to retain BIOS settings/time, etc. But nobody even knows internals of macs to probably even comment on the existance of such.

Perhaps it is only best to remove it only in such extended time periods. But 93% discharge before automatic recharge? No way. With my machine it has always been 96% and trickle charging begins to top it off again. That little battery is separate from the main battery (if it even exists on a macbook's board) but at the least it should fulfill the same function as on a pc's motherboard, which would be to keep the system time and date...