An elderly friend has an Amptron PM-8800A motherboard (it has the i430VX
chipset) and is experiencing loss of date/time when the computer is switched
off. I assume that the motherboard
battery needs changing but don't know how to do it. What battery is required
please, and what is the procedure for changing it?
If the picture I saw is correct,
http://web.tiscali.it/no-redirect-tiscali/acorp/mobo_spec/amptron/pm8800/pm8800_photo.jpg
That board employs a "Dallas Realtime Clock". It is between the PCI
and ISA slots, a (roughly) 15mm x 30mm rectangular black plastic box
with white text on it.
It is an integrated timekeeping unit with battery, the battery itself
is not replaceable. The entire module is soldered onto the
motherboard and a (new) replacement may be very hard to find... if you
found an unused but several years old replacement, it may not even
work today. If they (or a suitable 3rd party alternative) is still
being made, it could easily be cost-prohibitive to buy, ship, pay a
technician to take apart the system, remove board, solder it on.
Unfortunately Amptron doesn't appear to even offer a manual for that
board, just a random assortment of what might've once been the product
page in a zip file... I glanced at it and didn't find what i was
looking for, the possibility of a pair of pins, a header into which a
replacement battery might be plugged... it's possible this pin-header
exists but also they might have omitted it from the design to save
$0.001 If your friend can find the manual (which during that era,
were crude manuals to say the least), you have some hope of finding a
battery header, but certainly you wouldn't want to try
indiscriminately plugging a battery into a pin-header of unknown
function. It "might" be possible to solder a leaded batter pack to
the backside of the Dallas module, but that's also a pretty unusual
way to do it, might be VERY hard to find someone comfortable in doing
that.
Frankly, unless you manage to find such a jumper AND the battery
holder, some of which were being thrown away by PC shops for years but
now are rarer... otherwise it's time to retire it, just not worthwhile
at this point to spend the amount of time and money on something that
may be near the end of it's life anyway. It appears that lower and
higher model numbers in the Amptron 8(nnn) series used a standard
lithium CR2032 3V battery, which is silver, about the size of a
nickel, so it's a shame that 8800A board used the older style of
battery-power.
Dave
