How to attach leads straight to battery?

Oren schreef op Sat, 23 Jul 2011 15:27:56 -0700 in artikel :

:

The BIOS settings are controlled by the battery, I think with an empty battry, he use the defaults.

Met vriendelijke groeten, Jawade.

Reply to
Jawade
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We have two ThinkPads (T60 and a T61) and I gave an older T60 to my son, a few years back. Of the three, only mine, the newest, has any battery life left. Mine is just over three years old and my wife's is four. The kid's totally died recently so has gone to the great bit bucket in the sky.

For work, I've had a TP A21 (the nicest of them all) and a T43. Each one has gotten a little worse, particularly since IBM sold the business. There is a very good possibility that my T61 is the last of the ThinkPads for me, even though I get a rather decent discount on them. I have no idea what else to buy though. All laptops seem to be junk.

Really, three years is about all you can realistically expect out of a LiIon battery.

You don't have to. I bought all my ThinkPads and accessories online, using a credit card.

Mine is almost always plugged in (docking station) but the battery still has over 60% (ext.) capacity. My wife's is just about gone and I was thinking about buying a replacement but the ThinkPad is four years old.

IBM hasn't made desktop or laptop PCs for at least five years (more like seven).

Reply to
krw

" snipped-for-privacy@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

laptops typically have a shorter life because they get more abuse from transportation and from battery and thermal-handling limitations.

I believe the OP is talking about the lithium COIN cell(CR2032) that maintains the CMOS setup data,not the main battery pack. Those coin cells can last a lot more than 3 years in such applications;

7-10 years.

maybe he's left the BIOS write-protect jumper in the wrong position?

Reply to
Jim Yanik

Yet they last fairly well, except the batteries. My issue isn't with the ThinkPads being damaged. The later ones were designed that way.

Yes but, in case you hadn't noticed, topics drift. ;-)

Jumper? Haven't seen a jumper in a decade, particularly on a laptop.

Reply to
krw

artikel:

I should have tried it with the battery out -- sort of too late now (I should have read this post Saturrday instead of Sunday at midnight)-- , but I found webpages describing the 161 and 163 error numbers on a Thinkpad, at least some of them, and they all agreed it was the CMOS battery.

In addition, I once had a MAC II, and though they are famous for being better designed than PC's, the guy at the computer user group I used to go to told me that they too will not boot without a good cmos battery. And in the case of that computer, the battery was soldered in, and almost everyone ended up taking it to repairman to be serviced, JUST for this battrey. That's two levels worse than most PCs. Oh, and apparently it was a secret back then that the battery was the problem. So that's 3 levels worse. What he woudl do is put in a battery holder for 2 AAA batteries iirc. so customers wouldn't have to pay him a second time. Or maybe he was just talking about his own computers and friends'.

Reply to
micky

artikel:

Good to know. And it also means I didn't lose out by not reading the previous post yesterday.

Reply to
micky

Ye s, this one is a 600E

It tunrs out that mini torch I was talking about, Archer brand, from when Radio Shack used the Archer brand, burned butane and micronox, whatever that is.

And I had never read the manual all the way t through, and it was only for brazing, it seemed, not soldering, and there were supposed to be brazing rods, which my friend didn't give me. I have some for bigger torches but I'm sure brazing the battery would ruin it.

So I tried soldering. When I was little, like 1`953,, I found in a box in the basement, wiith electrical parts, two D-cells and a lightbulb wired together. I think it had all been stuffed in a cake, It might have been for my brother, because I surely don't remember it. and my parents saved it all even though the batteries were long dead.

But the wires were soldered to the battery, and I thought that was cool, so yesterday I tried to solder to the CR2032. Yes it seems to be satainless steel and that certaiinly is harder than a D-cell 60 years ago.

So I used some separate flux to save time and heating, and a WEN soldering gun, but it just didn't stick.

Also the battery was a lot hotter than I expected after I had tried 3 or 4 times, but it stilll read 3 volts and still says that today too.

So I bought a thinner coin batterry holder at Radio Shack today, for

1.19 but it's still not thin enough. (Maybe John McGraw's side grabbing one will be thin enough, but i'm not buying anything else until the rest of the computer works) So I used longer wires, and ran them through the small crack where the CD drive slides into the bay in the laptop, then applied heatshrink to the battery holder and battery.

And now it will start. It stil doesn't boot right from the hard drive but it does start DOS from Hiren's boot CD

I'm learning a lot, and even though it's old equipment, it's as int eresting as any computer stuff I've done in months.

Thanks all.

Reply to
micky

LOL I did that. I destroyed a whole, probably working computer yesterday must to get the battery holder. They sell them for 1.19 at Radio Shack but it was 101 degrees yesterday, Saturday, and I didn't want to go out. It was from 1995 and only ran at 200 MHz, and I got it free and was never going to use it. I have an ISA card left over and 3 of the next generation -- I forget their name. Plus some other parts I'll probably never use. I don't think the case will fit new mobos, so I made a little space.

Reply to
micky

f this would work it would have been a good idea too. Too late now mayube, but this might have worked becaus ethere is some spring loaded space between two pieces of metal where the battery goes.

I could have put a drop of sollder on each wire's end, so the wire was thicker than the insulation.

This is the sort of answer I was looking for, among others, but there weree so many answers, I didn't take time to read them all!!

Some would say that 9 dollars is more than the laptop is worht.

I spend 23 dollars on the 40 gig HDD, but I figure I can use that in other laptops in the future.

That is, unless they insist on SATA or something.. I didn't think of that when I bought it.

(Although just tonightt for the first time, someone on Freecycle is giving away two laptops. And both are missiing harddrives. He thinks they may also be broken. I don't know if he's going to give tghem to me or someone else yet. I may not be the first to reply. )

Reply to
micky

There is a lot of stuff that's not sold nearby even if you live in a big city. More and more I think, now that mail order is so well espatablished. Okay, web order.

For example, I doubt any place in Battimore will have the battery I need. And it's too much trouble to call around anyhow. Who might have it is a computer repair place, but I assume they will charge 20 dollars instead of 9.

The idea was that instead of giving your credit card number to every single company, person, or thief you bought from, you'd give it to only one company, Paypal. That seems like a good idea to me. They have my debit card number and have never stolen from me, nor has anyone else gotten the number from Paypal. I heard on the radio that a credit card is better than a debit card in this case, but that's for another reaons, not secuiryt. )

Read my other posts. I used a RAdio Shack battery holder. I was going to run the wires out beneath the memory compartment cover, until I noticed it was metal with sharp edges. I still could have cut a hole at the edge, but that would have left sharp edges too. I could have drilled a hole and put in a grommet. Is it bad to drill a hole through the memory compartment cover? Why is the cover metal to begin with? Are they stilll metal in the newer slightly lighter laptops.

FWIW I have a home assembled computer on an ASUS mobo and I've only replaced the battery once in 8 years I think, plus the previous owner used t he board for 2 or 3 years.

I may be moving to a Dell soon, all assembled by Dell. (This is mm, mm2005 by the way.)

Reply to
micky

If it was all that important, I'd rather pay $20 than give my banking info to Paypal. They could rob me of much more money than the extra $11. Remember, Paypal is OWNED by Ebay.

You've been lucky *SO FAR*. I used to buy from Ebay at least once a month, and did so for years. That;s until they stopped allowing sellers to take money orders. I did not mind paying the buck or two to buy the money order. It kept Ebay out of my personal life and particularly my bank. I was a regular customer for a few ebay sellers. I asked them if I could still send them a MO. They said that if I did, they could lose their ebay seller account. When ebay issued this change, they just said "f*ck you" to some of their customers (like me), becuase they wanted to make a few more pennys with their damn Paypal. I have not used Ebay since. Honestly, I dont think ebay should be able to dictate how a customer pays the seller anyhow. Ebay lists the items and gets a commission. Just like any brick and mortar store or auction service who sells stuff at a commission. When I buy from a seller, I should be able to pay them using any legal currency available, and that includes plastic, cash, checks, money orders, Western Union, and online payment services. But Ebay got greedy and insisted they get those extra pennys.

If I must, I intend to run the wires to the bottom of the computer and make some sort of 3/4" high legs in the corners. One of them will contain a coin cell holder. Laptops often die early deaths because they overheat. The problem is that the air vents on the bottom are blocked. They are called "laptops", but I have never used one on my lap. I sit them on a table, or worse, on a padded couch or my bed. That blocks the heat circulation. These legs will allow more air space and can eliminate spending $9 or more for a $2 CR2032 battery.

Reply to
jw

When a laptop CMOS battery dies--after 5 to 7 years--it's not supposed to be replaced, one is supposed to buy a latter model. Had it been meant to be user-replacable, it wouldn't be at all difficult to locate it on the bottom like extra memory module. I wonder why no-one has suggested this.

Reply to
Dan

Only an idiot would buy into this thinking !!!!!!! (of course plenty of them exist).

Reply to
jw

Screw what their marketing geniuses told them- some of us have tools, and are not afraid to use them.

I'm more of a jack-of-all-trades than an actual expert in any technology, but you pick up a few things over the years. I won't spend money for a pro repair of an obsolete device, but if there is no obvious physical damage, I'll almost always at least make a pass through it before I pitch it. A lot of the time, the repair ends up being trivial.

Reply to
aemeijers

Apprarently not. The fefaults must be good enough.

All I did is replace the battery, and it boots from a bootable CD. It wouldn't do that before. It still won't boot from the HDD, because I did sometthing wrong to the HDD, but the Hiren's Boot CD does see the HDD.

(No time to work on it more for about two weeks. Going out of town. No time even to read replies. I'll post again when I get back.)

Well, this machine was unplugged for 2+ years, during which time the CMOS battery went dead** so the contents at that point were, I suppose, empty or invalid, but putting in the cmos battery did sometihng and now it's booting.

**(and probably the laptop battery too, which I probably recharged partially by now.
Reply to
micky

Is there an electronic supply house in your area? Even us backward Southern Hillbillies have a dozen supply houses for electronics and alarm systems that stock lithium coin cells with spot welded leads to replace those common memory batteries in all types of electronic equipment. It doesn't have to be labeled as the specific replacement for your IBM computer, it's the same battery used in many different types of microprocessor controlled gear.

TDD

Reply to
The Daring Dufas

Yup. I'm typing this on a T60, my newest TP, and I have another dozen or so going back to about 2003 around the place, most working, the rest being repaired.

Reply to
~misfit~

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