Post #157,455
5/28/04 1:58:51 PM
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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]
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Post #157,462
5/28/04 2:40:10 PM
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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
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Post #157,589
5/29/04 4:14:59 PM
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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].
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Post #157,601
5/29/04 5:04:58 PM
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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]
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Post #157,602
5/29/04 5:13:10 PM
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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]
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Post #157,616
5/29/04 6:39:12 PM
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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]
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Post #157,631
5/29/04 8:24:44 PM
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Let her have her delusions
She might be a DEB (Data Entry B*tch) 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].
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Post #157,635
5/29/04 8:38:34 PM
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'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.
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Post #157,637
5/29/04 8:46:20 PM
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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].
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Post #157,659
5/30/04 1:38:31 AM
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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].
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Post #157,663
5/30/04 2:08:34 AM
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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
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