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Vintage Computers Any vintage computer systems, calculators, video games etc., but with an emphasis on 1980s and earlier equipment.

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Old 24th Feb 2018, 1:51 am   #1
Zelandeth
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Default RTC Battery Leakage - Acorn A3000

We've all seen this on machines of this era... rechargeable battery on the motherboard to keep the RTC going and the BIOS setup held in memory...which after 20 odd years leaks and causes untold damage to the surrounding board.

Amiga 500s are very prone to this, and I've had two Acorn A5000s nuked by it before I got them. The A7000 I got a couple of years back was caught in the nick of time.

I'd plain forgotten the A3000 even had such a battery though or I'd have removed it before putting it into storage. Idiot. It was also in storage for about a decade longer than planned as I lost track of it.

So yes... I've now got significant damage to the lower left corner of the motherboard. Whether the machine is repairable will remain to be seen.

I'll update this thread if/when I attempt it though. This was the first really useful machine I was given so it has a lot of centimenal value.

Wanted to post this up though as I think it's worth of bringing up now and then...if you've got machines of this era, either remove the RTC battery or at least mount it remotely so the motherboard doesn't suffer catastrophic damage if (when) it happens...

Fingers crossed I can sort this one out.
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Old 24th Feb 2018, 4:26 pm   #2
cmjones01
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Default Re: RTC Battery Leakage - Acorn A3000

Hear hear. The batteries used on this generation of Acorn machines seem to be particularly nasty. I managed to remove the battery from my A3010 just in the nick of time: at least, it had started to ooze but the machine still worked. I've also got an A420/1 which I think has a separate battery, not on the motherboard, and is thus less prone to corrosion.

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Old 25th Feb 2018, 12:47 pm   #3
dominicbeesley
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Default Re: RTC Battery Leakage - Acorn A3000

Thanks for the reminder....ive been wanting an excuse to get my a3thus out of storage!
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