T43 CMOS battery voltage

[dwcrabtree]

I have a Thinkpad T43. It won't boot so in my troubleshooting I got to the removal of the CMOS battery, which is rated at 3.0 Volts. I reads 2.87, kind of low. Is this voltage high enough to do the job? My old electronics troubleshooting experience says probably no. If anything it should be AT LEAST 3.0 volts. I'm new to this forum and this is my first post

Any help is greatly appreciated.
Dave

[Bill Z]

Even with a dead CMOS battery, the T43 should boot. It will just not have the current date and time. Your CMOS battery is still at 95.66% of max. Should not cause issues till less that 80%.

What errors do you get when trying to boot? What do you notice? When did it stop booting? What changed?

Help us help you.

[dwcrabtree]

Well it won't power on. The fan comes on, LEDs come on, no video even out the VGA port, then i get the beep code: 3 beeps followed by 1 beep followed by 4 then followed by 4. No video. Never appears to hit on the hard drive (no hard drive LED).
I can't find any info on that particular beep code, I have the maintenance manual.
its not memory, or hard drive. I've pulled everything from the unit I can except the video screen. Still get the beep code mentioned above.

[poshgeordie]

welcome to the forums.

It's possible you have either an unsoldered Graphics or Southbridge chip - a very common fault with these boards.

[dwcrabtree]

OK i removed the screen, put the battery back in, now I get 4 beeps only then nothing.
Beep codes say it is "System board-Security Chip" or "system Board". Guess I need a new system board!