Bad CMOS battery on 380XD

[schen]

I had a typical problem which turned in a strange problem, which ultimately ended up being saved by an odd quirk.

I traded for a 380XD with another forum member as partial project swaps. I received a box stock PII version of the 380XD that was showing 161, 163 and Fan errors which pretty much looked like a simple CMOS battery replacement. So I went ahead and ordered a CMOS battery from a vendor on Amazon, found some EDO RAM for it and reloaded the machine so my son could play learning games on it. I get the battery in the mail and put it in, but still keep getting the same errors like it was dead too! So I take it out this afternoon with the intention of sending it back to the vendor when one of the wires on the plug came out. I thought; (^%*^*^, no wonder it didn't work, so I looked a the plug and it showed 3 places for wires and one wire still attached, so now I had 2 places to put 1 wire! As luck would have it, the pack-rat in me kept the old CMOS battery so I used it as reference. It turns out the the battery manufacturer put the wires in the wrong holes period! Even the ones still attached was in the wrong place.

After removing the wires and putting them back where they belonged, magically the 380 stopped having errors! The pack-rat in me rejoices! Now... on to the next project!

[ryengineer]

Good to know about your experimentation. It's always nice to see something up and running on things you spend your time on.

I'm a pack-rat like you but my wife throws away such things.

[schen]

I've found the trick! First, I've converted to squirreling away laptop parts, not desktop..... so parts are MUCH smaller. She's an organizational nut with a high need to buy all manner of boxes, cases etc. So I put everything in all these nice little plastic boxes or bins so it looks neat. Now I've got all sorts of little stuff in those boxes with the little compartments and she leave me/and it alone!

[ryengineer]

ah, that's a great trick. I am going to try it and see how she reacts to that. I truly hope she will also leave me/and these things alone like your wife.