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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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24th Feb 2018, 1:51 am | #1 |
Heptode
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, UK.
Posts: 931
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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. |
24th Feb 2018, 4:26 pm | #2 |
Nonode
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Warsaw, Poland and Cambridge, UK
Posts: 2,677
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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.
Chris
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25th Feb 2018, 12:47 pm | #3 |
Octode
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, UK.
Posts: 1,885
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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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