Many Compaq systemboards had a 3-pin connector close to the preinstalled
battery. You could attach a 4.5 volt alkaline battery to take the place of
the dead systemboard battery. Compaq sold these batteries, which included
the battery, a 3-wire connector and velcro strip to attach the battery to
the systemboard.
HH

"Kevin Childers" wrote in message
...
Batteries were once soldered on boards because at the time the only
batteries that could do the job were of a type that required it and
computer
designers were not concerned with this issue much. With the boom in
personal computers and improvements in battery technology created the
simple
to install ones we use today. That is why they came up with the auxiliary
batteries to allow you to supplement a computer with a dead soldered on
battery. Computer techs used to have to unsolder the old batteries and
then
solder on a new one. Not to hard on a single layer board of that era, the
devil to do on the new boards of today.

Now you, God, Compaq (and all of the other mother board manufacturers
of
that era), and all the readers of this forum know why.

KC

"DEJ57" wrote in message
...



Regarding the CMOS reset: My understanding is that I have to remove
the battery from the motherboard in order to reset the CMOS. The
battery seems to be fixed quite securely to the motherboard and
certainly not removable by hand. I have not tried using a screwdriver,
but I will certainly try it sometime if the boot floppy will not work.

Some CMOS batteries are soldered onto the systemboard (only God and
Compaq
know
why). Should be jumper pins somewhere on the board, with a jumper in
place,
that controls the flow of current to the CMOS from the battery, and is
also the
connection point for an aux battery to attach to and power the CMOS when
the
onboard battery goes dead.

Dale