Possible (or worth it) to change a motherboard battery?

Post #157,361 by drewk 5/28/04 7:44:13 AM Reply	Possible (or worth it) to change a motherboard battery? The battery on drookenstein is more shot than I thought. I turned off the power strip recently, the first time since configuring the box, and the time and date were way off. I'd like it to hold the time better, but can live with it if I could get ntpd configured properly. So any tips for either? The mobo battery replacement or configuring ntpd? (I've followed the official documentation for ntp and still can't get it. If someone could point to a good HOWTO I can follow it. Yes I googled.) === Implicitly condoning stupidity since 2001.
Post #157,362 by Meerkat 5/28/04 7:59:29 AM Reply	All depends on the motherboard I guess What kind of battery does it use? I had a motherboard once that used a standard CR2032 - which was handy as I had a store of the, for use in my Dreamcast's VMUs. Took all of ten seconds to pop out the old battery and pop in a new one. Two out of three people wonder where the other one is.
Post #157,383 by drewk 5/28/04 9:52:36 AM Reply	Thanks, will check tonight (unless Greg remembers) === Implicitly condoning stupidity since 2001.
Post #157,363 by Yendor 5/28/04 8:29:26 AM Reply	NTP configgering This is off the top of my head, but it's not that hard... `apt-get install ntpdate` `$EDITOR /etc/default/ntpdate [mike@halfadozen bin]$ cat /etc/default/ntpdate NTPSERVERS="192.5.41.209 132.163.4.101 132.163.4.102 132.163.4.103"` Exit $EDITOR `/etc/init.d/ntpdate restart` Set up a cronjob for it if you so wish. -YendorMike [link\|http://www.hope-ride.org/\|http://www.hope-ride.org/]
Post #157,384 by drewk 5/28/04 9:53:27 AM Reply	Pretty sure I tried that I'll verify and post the error messages tonight. === Implicitly condoning stupidity since 2001.
Post #157,394 by deSitter 5/28/04 10:17:17 AM Reply	get list of servers, ntptimeset -s -drl
Post #157,455 by Andrew Grygus 5/28/04 1:58:51 PM Reply	Nearly all motherboards today . . . . . use the ubiquitous CR2032 coin battery. It's just about always flat on the mother board in a little black plastic ring with a metal spring at one edge. You use a small screwdriver to push the spring clip back far enough for the battery to spring out. Easy most of the time, depending on what's in the way. Back in the bad old days of the 386 it was always Varta blue barrels and you had to remove the mother board to desolder and resolder them. They'd start to leak and corrode the traces on the board if not promptly replaced. One good point about Varta blue barrels - you could toss them in a bed of hot coals and in a little while they'd go off with a tremendous bang! (hint: you don't want to be anywhere nearby when that happens - if the little stainless steel cups hit anything hard the velocity is sufficient to fold them in half). [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #157,462 by a6l6e6x 5/28/04 2:40:10 PM Reply	Get the battery out, as Andrew says, and... double check the type. Go to nearest Radio Shaft and a get a replacement. Plop it in. Done. Alex Honor has not to be won; it must only not be lost. -- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), German philosopher
Post #157,589 by orion 5/29/04 4:14:59 PM Reply	Older motherboards I remember the blue barrels. I also remember that black box, some Dallas "Time Chip" with an integrated battery. It cost a lot of money to replace those things. There used to be external battery packs too, two or four pins that plugged into the motherboard and 6 volts or some thing like that for a custom battery. I recall that someone made a replacement for the custom battery using 4 AA batteries and the same clip to the motherboard. Then you just replaced the AA batteries when they expired. Nobody I know makes those AA clips anymore. Instead of replacing that blue barrel or black chip, you set a jumper for external battery and clipped one of those on a set of pins. IBM PS/2 systems used many different battery types, I recall the model 80 used a camera battery. For then CR2302, I usually buy the dual CR2302 Duracell battery pack for $5USD at Walgreens, keep one for a spare. Never know when I or someone else will need it. Pentium and up moterboards mostly use the CR2302 battery. *"What's the use of saving life when you see what you do with it?" - Corbin Dallas "The Fifth Element"* [link\|http://www.xormad.com:4096/district268\|I am from District 268].
Post #157,601 by Andrew Grygus 5/29/04 5:04:58 PM Reply	Ripped those AA clips out any time I saw one.. The plastic would relax due to heat in the computer and spill the batteries out onto the mother board. I always used the best available batteries because battery problems were EXTREMELY DANGEROUS in tho days before effective hard disk autodetect. When people called with no hard disk I'd tell them, "It'll be an easy fix but I need to open up the computer and find the make and model of your hard disk so you have to bring it in, but whatever you do DON'T LET ANYONE RUN NORTON DISK DOCTOR ON IT or your data is history". Every freak'n time their friend the "computer expert" would tell them I was full of it and just wanted to charge them the big bucks and ran Norton Disk Doctor. Total data loss - every time - the single most destructive utility of all time. I had guys near tears at losing their life's work. They'd ask about data recovery and I'd tell them, "With the FAT tables creamed, probably about $10,000" (disks were small back then). Best I could do for them was format the disk and run an Unformat program on it. That recovered some stuff in the early days but didn't work on later machines. Backups? you're kidding, right? All they had was floppies and you can't expect someone who is completely mystified by what a subdirectory might be (still probably 80%+ of users) to back up effectively to floppies. I do not know why most users simply cannot comprehend a hard disk filing structure but they can't and it's no use getting upset about it. They just can't. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #157,602 by ben_tilly 5/29/04 5:13:10 PM Reply	That subdirectory factoid amazes computer people I told that to a co-worker who said, "No way. Just can't understand a directory structure? I can't believe that." A few weeks later she told me, "I believe you now - I was helping a friend and realized that he didn't understand directories. I just couldn't believe it." Cheers, Ben To deny the indirect purchaser, who in this case is the ultimate purchaser, the right to seek relief from unlawful conduct, would essentially remove the word consumer from the Consumer Protection Act - [link\|http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?NewsID=1246&Page=1&pagePos=20\|Nebraska Supreme Court]
Post #157,616 by boxley 5/29/04 6:39:12 PM Reply	Even More amazing, a story I eaves dropped on the bus this week. Legal secrataries one whose firm just moved from Dos and WordPerfect this week to Windows and MSWord. The one secratary is exited about a new product that the firm purchased and is spending a week training her. Its an assistant built to work with MSWord. "This is great, you organise your desktop like a filing cabinet! it has folders that you name and sort just like in a real cabinet! I can lookup a document in a window and it will go right to it!" I wuz gonna say something but didnt have the heart. thanx, bill Time for Lord Stanley to get a Tan questions, help? [link\|mailto:pappas@catholic.org\|email pappas at catholic.org]
Post #157,631 by orion 5/29/04 8:24:44 PM Reply	Let her have her delusions She might be a DEB (Data Entry Btch) for a lawyer that types in documents for him/her, but at least let her have her delusions about her computer environment. Before you know it, she will think she knows more than the entire IT department, and will start suggesting things for them to do. Woe be to them, if she is a Legal Secretary to a partner or other high-up, they may actually have to follow her sugestions. I did not make up the term DEB, someone else at a law firm I worked in did. It was used to describe the behavior of some serious mean Legal Secretaries and other people who entered data and caused a lot of problems. They make a mistake and enter something as active, or make a typo, and then blame the IT department for the program being wrong, when clearly it was a data entry error. PEBKAM error, Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Mouse. "What's the use of saving life when you see what you do with it?" - Corbin Dallas "The Fifth Element"* [link\|http://www.xormad.com:4096/district268\|I am from District 268].
Post #157,635 by Meerkat 5/29/04 8:38:34 PM Reply	'DEB' is no less offensive just coz someone else invented it Considering someone else invented it you should have had the presence of mind not to try and propogate it. And it's (generally) 'PEBCAK'. Chair and Keyboard. What's a problem between Keyboard and Mouse ... the mouse pad? Two out of three people wonder where the other one is.
Post #157,637 by orion 5/29/04 8:46:20 PM Reply	I apoligize then I was wrong on both counts. *"What's the use of saving life when you see what you do with it?" - Corbin Dallas "The Fifth Element"* [link\|http://www.xormad.com:4096/district268\|I am from District 268].
Post #157,659 by orion 5/30/04 1:38:31 AM Reply	How the term DEB came about (new thread) Created as new thread #157658 titled [link\|/forums/render/content/show?contentid=157658\|How the term DEB came about] *"What's the use of saving life when you see what you do with it?" - Corbin Dallas "The Fifth Element"* [link\|http://www.xormad.com:4096/district268\|I am from District 268].
Post #157,663 by deSitter 5/30/04 2:08:34 AM Reply	Re: That subdirectory factoid amazes computer people You'd be astonished at the level of understanding, even of seemingly intelligent people. Once I had a well-dressed businesswoman in my cab, headed to the swanky Embassy Suites in downtown Denver - we were chatting about snow - I mentioned that snow was not much of a problem in Denver because the sun would usually nuke it 2 days later. "Of course!" she says - "you're so much closer to the sun!" -drl
Post #157,499 by folkert 5/28/04 7:30:47 PM Reply	Should be a Battery similar to a CR2032 or something. It is a gateway motherboard. The 500MHz had batteries easily changed Also, as of right now in debian, ntp-server now uses "pool.ntp.org" for it's time source. It round robins about 200 machines. -- [link\|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net\|greg], [link\|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry\|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ *i_wethey* Give a man a match, he'll be warm for a minute. Set him on fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life!
Post #157,543 by drewk 5/29/04 11:06:30 AM Reply	Cool, will be trying both (battery and pool.ntp) === Implicitly condoning stupidity since 2001.
Post #157,525 by Ashton 5/29/04 3:54:53 AM Reply	There may also be (depending on age of this relic) A couple of pins to short, to zero the CMOS "officially", intended for use before initial fire-up of the board. Then usually - you use same shorting block to reconnect to the (new) battery. Mostly - I think these are labelled, near battery carrier and silk-screened "short" or such-like. I've never experimented to confirm, as alleged -- that this step is necessary, so that next boot with battery renewed - properly loads BIOS defaults. But it can't hoit. Ashton (I used to pull most old-style CMOS Varta-like batts and install appropriate AA-cell carriers. EZ, cheap, only need do it once) But if yours is That old -
Post #157,562 by Andrew Grygus 5/29/04 2:47:50 PM Reply	There almost always is. This jumper is to discharge CMOS with the battery in - but it's still advised to unplug the power supply cables to the motherboard. Without the jumper (or unable to find it) you have to remove the battery and disconnect the power supply cables (even with the wall cord unplugged, a powersupply may have enough residual voltage to keep CMOS alive for as much as half an hour). Discharging the CMOS will sometimes return an insane computer to normal. Apparently there's important stuff in there the CMOS setup program doesn't touch. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #157,680 by Ashton 5/30/04 7:09:48 AM Reply	About those AAs Noted your comment re heat, falling out. Not claiming serendipity, but.. I always mounted mine outside the case, at back. Perhaps not the best solution in an office, but seemed 'cool'. All batteries like cool. Thanks re the reset - hadn't occurred that there could be junk mem locations not automatically rewritten from BIOS menu. So much not to know..

Welcome to IWETHEY!