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Old October 29th 03, 05:32 PM
DEJ57
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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


Well, that sounds good--but doesn't seem to mesh with my limited experience.
Maybe that theory holds for other clones but not Compaqs? Older pre-1996
Comapaq PCs I've worked on didn't have soldered on batteries, but had attached
by wire CMOS batteries. Of two Compaqs I owned from 1996, the slightly newer
one was soldered on, and the older did not (disk battery in holder/socket).
But both used practically the same 3 volt battery, except the soldered on one's
model number was like one digit different than the other, and had extensions on
it for the solder points. But it was the basically the same battery. Older
386 and 486 Compaq laptops I worked on had the same disk batteries in holders,
not soldered on. Sorry, I don't see the thyme and reason that you do in the
way this issue has been handled by Compaq over the years. Guess I'm just
missing the method in the madness....

Well, if a tech has to solder the batteries off and on, or you have to buy a
$25 aux battery rather than the user to be able to replace a $3 3 volt disk
battery--maybe thats the wisdom from Compaqs part. Maybe a soldered on is
cheaper than a battery in a holder?

Dale