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T23 CMOS battery connector

T20-T23 Series and T30. NOT for T25-Retro.
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pault
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T23 CMOS battery connector

#1 Post by pault » Wed Jul 11, 2007 6:00 am

Hello all,

I've got a T23. In the last two days it has started to behave very strangely. Firstly, it would hang on a resume after a suspend. When I pressed the power key to restart it, it would not start up - the fan would start, the hard disk would spin around but the startup process would stop there, it wouldn't display the splash screen and start to boot. The fix was to unplug it, take out the battery for a few minutes and restart it. If I did this, the CMOS settings would reset and the date/time needed entering.

OK, so it's a backup battery problem. The thing is that the back up battery doesn't seem to be connected to any connector and if I peer into the hole where it is supposed to connect there doesn't seem to be anything into which to plug the battery.

So, I'm worried that the connector has snapped off and is lying around inside the laptop.

It seems I have to take apart the laptop find the connector and solder it back on. Is this an easy thing to do? If the connector itself is broken can I get a new one?

Thanks

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#2 Post by dsigma6 » Wed Jul 11, 2007 7:33 am

Page 61 shows the CMOS battery:

ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pccbbs/mo ... 2p9631.pdf

You're saying you think it broke off of the motherboard, or a piece came off of the actual CMOS retainer clip?
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#3 Post by chan_man » Wed Jul 11, 2007 7:36 am

The best thing to do is to take the small screw holding the CMOS battery out and then remove the battery assembly, at the end of the wires is a small white connector. This mates to a connector on the motherboard. It may be simply that the CMOS batter needs to be replaced, they do die with time. If there is no white connector at the end of the wires, then it may have been left inside the mating connector...

If what you think is true that the connector on the motherboard is gone, it is not hard to remove the top cover but to get to this connector, it is on the backside of the motherboard so the entire board has to be taken out for a repair. It would seem unlikely that that the connector would have broken off, there is no stress in this connection, the wires coming out of the battery is very thin.
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pault
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#4 Post by pault » Wed Jul 11, 2007 7:51 am

chan_man wrote:. If there is no white connector at the end of the wires, then it may have been left inside the mating connector...
There is a white connector on the end of the battery assembly. The problem is that it doesn't seem to be possible to plug it into anything. That is there doesn't seem to be a plug on the motherboard.
If what you think is true that the connector on the motherboard is gone, it is not hard to remove the top cover but to get to this connector, it is on the backside of the motherboard so the entire board has to be taken out for a repair. It would seem unlikely that that the connector would have broken off, there is no stress in this connection, the wires coming out of the battery is very thin.
That's another thing to investigate. I'll have another look as soon as I get a chance.
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#5 Post by dsigma6 » Wed Jul 11, 2007 7:53 am

chan_man wrote:If there is no white connector at the end of the wires, then it may have been left inside the mating connector...
Good point. That happened to me about 6 months ago. For a while I just had the wires coming from the CMOS holder shoved into the motherboard...
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#6 Post by tfflivemb2 » Wed Jul 11, 2007 10:26 am

You have to tilt the system at an angle to be able to see the white socket. I'll try to take a pic of it on one of my T23s.

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#7 Post by rkawakami » Wed Jul 11, 2007 1:14 pm

The CMOS battery connector is on the "top" side of the motherboard and can be seen in this picture:

http://www.rkawakami.net/ibm_t2x/mobo_top_72_legend.jpg

in the upper-left corner of "map location" G7. You can get to it by removing the keyboard and keyboard bezel. It is soldered to the top side in four places; the two wires which connect the battery to the motherboard and two places on either end of the connector which appear to keep the connector firmly attached to the board.
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#8 Post by chan_man » Wed Jul 11, 2007 3:00 pm

Ray,

Thanks for the correction... this will make it easier to repair but I still find it hard to see how this would break off from the motherboard.
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#9 Post by rkawakami » Wed Jul 11, 2007 4:07 pm

I thought I had posted about encountering a busted off backup battery connector before, but I couldn't find anything in the archives. Anyway, an eBay seller got rid of a T23 because of constant 161/163 errors. Turns out the CMOS battery connector on the motherboard had broken off. A fairly simple matter of re-soldering the tiny jack back onto the motherboard and it got rid of the boot errors. The system still has a problem with requiring a twist on the front left corner sometimes so there's more work to be done on it. I assume that both problems are a result of weak soldered connections, coupled with chassis flex (or misguided brute force in the case of the backup battery).
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X22 X24 X31 X41 X41T X60 X60s X61 X61s X200 X200s X300 X301 Z60m Z61t Z61p 560 560Z 600 600E 600X T21 T22 T23 T41 T60p T410 T420 T520 W500 W520 R50 A21p A22p A31 A31p
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#10 Post by tfflivemb2 » Wed Jul 11, 2007 5:57 pm

The CMOS connector is missing off of my R40 as well, but since my soldering skills are getting better, i will be fixing it soon.

Since it appears that the connector is missing on yours, I'll hold off on the pics.

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#11 Post by pault » Thu Jul 12, 2007 3:35 am

rkawakami wrote:The CMOS battery connector is on the "top" side of the motherboard and can be seen in this picture:

http://www.rkawakami.net/ibm_t2x/mobo_top_72_legend.jpg

in the upper-left corner of "map location" G7. You can get to it by removing the keyboard and keyboard bezel. It is soldered to the top side in four places; the two wires which connect the battery to the motherboard and two places on either end of the connector which appear to keep the connector firmly attached to the board.
Thanks. It's small in the pic, but it looks white, all I can see on my t23 is a metal tab.

I'll take it apart and have a good look inside once my new desktop arrives - I can't afford to be without a PC. Funnily the laptop works fine as long as a I don't unplug it and don't put it to sleep. I can halt and restart it fine, but again as long as it isn't unplug while it's turned off.
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