Laptop clock and the PPOT Brain Trust.

[fingpilot]

Year or so ago, Marriott's gift points catalog offered a nice SONY Vaio laptop for a pretty good price (free, basically since I paid for it in points accumulated by hotel stays at work).

1.73 GhZ chip, 80Gig HDD, nice machine.

They (I got 2 of them) sat in the unopened box until last week. Both of my current Vaio Laptops were dying a slow death. They do rigourous service travelling with me, and both lasted more than 3 years.

Now the funny part. The clocks will not keep time. Clock stops when puter shuts down. AtomTime resynchs as soon as I go online, but is a PITA.

Do I remember, or am I thinking desktop, that there is a 'stay-alive' watch batt on the motherboard, just for this, and perhaps the long period of inactivity had flattened these batts? Or is this a SW prob? I have reset the time and zone correctly, and both machines are doing the exact same thing.

Brain Trust?????

[Joeaksa]

Michael,

Check your CMOS battery. When they run down the system loses time.

Usually a wafer battery about the size of a quarter on the motherboard. Should be easy to change.

Joe A

[fingpilot]

Just reached into the front of my pants and the CMOS batt felt fine.

Where is the one you are talking about?


You slippery devil, you. You edited prior to a minute and beat me to it.

[Joeaksa]

Which model Vaio. Will check into it.

[fingpilot]

VGN-FS742/W

[Joeaksa]

Just spent 20 minutes going through the info that Sony puts on the internet and could not find any reference to the battery. Did you get a owners manual with the laptop? Wonder if its there?

The BIOS battery is usually under a cover on the bottom or possibly under the keyboard. Will post a question on a laptop repair forum I am on and see if someone there knows exactly where the battery is located.

[fingpilot]

I opened all the easily removable covers, and unless it's under the RAM, nada. Even to get the keyboard up will involve 'splitting the case'.

That makes me vulnerable to the 'while we're in there' syndrome. That makes this a thread containing Porsche content BTW.

[304065]

It's Y2K!

Seriously, I agree with Joe, there's a lithium battery somewhere that keeps the CMOS powered when the battery's removed or external power is not present. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to find it. Bonus points if you can actually get it back together without glue, although, much like splitting a 911 engine case (obligatory Porsche content) there's always one remaining screw that cracks when you finally run out of patience and start yanking the clamshell apart.

[john70t]

This might do it:
http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/model-documents.pl?mdl=VGNFS742W&LOC=3

[fingpilot]

Thanks John.

I'm saddened to see the 'Garantia limitada por productos SONY'.

I didn't even have to press '1' for English.

[stomachmonkey]

Agree Battery.

[slodave]

I can replace it for you. It hate working on Sony laptops, but I have. Sometimes the battery is not accessible unless the laptop is taken apart. It is not always a wafer battery either. Sometimes they are two small watch batteries that have been shrink wrapped together.

Dave

[Joeaksa]

Dave,

Where in the hell is the battery on these puppies? Its not shown anywhere I can find in the info posted above by John, which is where I was looking earlier.

[slodave]

Hi,

This is not the exact MB, but it'll give an idea of how it is hidden. Only way to get to it, is by taking the thing apart.

Dave

[Joeaksa]

Dave,

Thanks. Thats forking crazy, hiding something that needs to be changed like that. Are you close enough to Michael to give him a hand?

Michael, am heading to London then S.Korea on a two week overseas trip. Will help as I can but going to be busy for a bit.

Joe

[slodave]

Joe: Most of the time, the battery outlasts the laptop. Most of the laptops I have opened have the CMOS battery out of site.

Michael: I don't think we are that far from each other, we could arrange a time and I could drive down.

Dave

[Joeaksa]

Dave,

Thanks and guess Dell and IBM have other ideas on this. Have had IBM and Dell's for years and they mostly are replaceable behind covers or under the keyboard.

We live and learn...

[fingpilot]

Dave;

Thanks so much. I am over at Van Nuys airport this evening, and probably most of tomorrow as well. I suspect the long shelf time did the batts in. I'll PM my number, and at your convienience maybe we can get together.

Michael.

[slodave]

I am free tomorrow. Would need to run to Fry's to try and find the correct or similar battery. Not much of a problem.

Dave

[Joeaksa]

Dave and Michael,

Did you guys ever get the laptop fixed? How much fun was it to get to the batteries?

Joe