Enter Blog Title Here

BLOG READER E-MAILING ME

Hi - I got your email address from your blog. I am going to make an assumption that this is Jonathan, the same person who posted this message at computing.net several months ago:


Interesting
I am not so surprised to find this thread, but I am surprised to find it from October 2005.

Even more surprising is that I am wanting to replace the exact same battery in the same month - weird.

Anyway, looking over the PB450 motherboard on this particular machine reveals that the BR1225 is soldered on.

It looks like there are 2 metal leads coming off (one top, one bottom) that suspend the battery above the board.

My question now is how do I go about replacing the battery. Do I need new leads or can I clip and use the old ones? Can I use any hunk of metal if I need new leads?

There is also a way to disable the on-board battery and plug an external battery right onto the jumpers of the board. Can I just plop some wires down on the + and - side of the battery and plug them in?

Any help would be appreciated.



It's weird that so many people are having this exact same issue at the same time - still a lot of love for 486's I guess. I keep mine around for retro-gaming purposes, but have now run into the dreaded battery problem.


Did you wind up fixing yours? At first I thought it would be a delicate soldering job, but it looks like, as you said, it may be as easy as plugging in a new external battery.


Here is a picture of our PB450:


http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/8774/mother/pb450.gif


The actual lithium battery is soldered to the right of J30 (Battery) in the diagram - the unlabeled gray circle.


Anyway, I was hoping that you had fixed this problem and could give me some pointers. I don't really know anything about putting an external battery on - except that it's going to somehow attach to J30. Do I actually have to "disable" the regular battery, or if it's dead it's dead?

=========================================
CONT

Wongo,

I think that I've figured out most of the battery
issue I previously
e-mailed you about. This battery should work with
the external port:

http://www.cablesnmor.com/lithium-battery.html

Does that look right to you?

Thanks,
John

=========================================
MY RESPONSE BELOW

Yes, that looks almost identicle to the one I made myself except that you're getting a lithium battery there and I just used alkaline AAA's.

Its funny, I posted that on my blog figuring that someone would end up there with a similar probelm. I'm glad that I could help.

I think that I did have to move a jumper on the board to indicate that I was using an 'external' battery, but you may have figured that out by now. A few weeks ago, I checked the links I'd been using for my Packard Bell motherboard diagrams and some of them had been taken down, but I bet you can find a diagram and description of the various jumpers by going to this site, http://rtgo.hopto.org/th99/ and looking for the PB450.

Good Luck and keep the retro gaming alive. I've personally had a lot of fun playing "Starflight 2" recently.

Check it out on The Underdogs Here if you've never heard of it.

JOURNEY

I think with the move to the new location, Journey should also consider moving worship time from Sunday night to late Saturday afternoon, say 5pm.

Here are my reasons (mostly all selfish)

I would just be a lot more likely to go. Sunday night is a time when I am wrapping the weekend up and inevitably have something to do that I’ve put off all weekend long. I never feel like I have appropriate time to socialize on Sunday night because of the impending dread that the end-of-weekend feelings bring on.

When I do come to Journey, I always want to rush home right away, which takes away a big part of the “community” aspect for me. On Saturday, I would be a lot more likely to socialize after Journey which would re-open the whole thing to me and Laura.

Maybe with the move to the new building, it would be a good time to suggest a schedule change?