Location of CMOS Battery in HP Pavilion N3390 Laptop

On Mon, 14 Jan 2013 07:41:41 -0500, in microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware you
wrote:

SNIP

Hi Paul & Vanguard,

I am very grateful to both of you for your efforts to help me. I looked
at the photos, including the one below. Unfortunately, I can not tell
where the CMOS battery is located. It is too bad that motherboard photo
isn't in HD.

http://www.notebookpartsrepair.com/H...otherboard.jpg

The worst part of this problem since the CMOS battery ran down, the CMOS
memory is corrupt. Now I can't use this laptop anymore because I have
to enter a password (after pressing "F1" or "F2" following the time/date error
message), which I have no clue. Note: I never had to enter a password before,
which includes entering "Setup" (F2).

Again, Thanks for your efforts John

PS, If I ever find out the location of the CMOS battery, I will post it here.

wrote:
On Mon, 14 Jan 2013 07:41:41 -0500, in microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware you
wrote:

SNIP

Hi Paul & Vanguard,

I am very grateful to both of you for your efforts to help me. I looked
at the photos, including the one below. Unfortunately, I can not tell
where the CMOS battery is located. It is too bad that motherboard photo
isn't in HD.

http://www.notebookpartsrepair.com/H...otherboard.jpg

The worst part of this problem since the CMOS battery ran down, the CMOS
memory is corrupt. Now I can't use this laptop anymore because I have
to enter a password (after pressing "F1" or "F2" following the time/date error
message), which I have no clue. Note: I never had to enter a password before,
which includes entering "Setup" (F2).

Again, Thanks for your efforts John

PS, If I ever find out the location of the CMOS battery, I will post it here.


Well, I hope you've seen this one. This one shows the circular object
in the lower left hand corner. Note the relationship, between the
dual DIMM area in the upper right. The bottom of the laptop has a square
plastic cover, that when removed, shows one or two DIMMs. The battery
is quite far from that opening. Flip the laptop over, and look in
the "barrel connector" corner of the laptop, for a cover or opening.

http://images.impactcomputers.us/IYB...1674-69010.jpg

The only question I have right now, is whether you can go in from the
bottom of the laptop or not. The bottom direction takes the shortest
path to get there. But, depending on which direction the screws are installed
on the thing (up through the bottom, or all screws fit in from the top),
will determine the nature of the disassembly. If there are no screw heads
on the bottom of the laptop, that implies you go in through the top
of the laptop, remove keyboard and bias strip, remove peripheral
assemblies, unscrew all motherboard fasteners, remove motherboard,
flip motherboard over, replace CR2032 or CR2016 or whatever
battery is there. So if you have to go in through the top, it
is going to be more work.

If the screws were removable from the bottom, it would imply the base
doesn't hold the machine together. So maybe this is just wishful
thinking on my part. I suspect you have to go in through the top,
until you get to the point you can pull the motherboard from the base,
flip over the motherboard, and change the battery. Seeing whether
there are a bunch of screw heads on the bottom of the laptop, helps
predict how much work this is going to be. At the very least,
work in a well lit area, with space to organize all the screws.
As losing or gaining screws is easy to do, when there are that many
of them. (Gaining screws means having left over screws in hand,
when you think the re-assembly is finished.)

Paul

"jaugustine" wrote:

The worst part of this problem since the CMOS battery ran down, the CMOS
memory is corrupt. Now I can't use this laptop anymore because I have
to enter a password (after pressing "F1" or "F2" following the time/date error
message), which I have no clue. Note: I never had to enter a password before,
which includes entering "Setup" (F2).

Does "enter a password" mean blank does not work? The default password
state listed in the manual is "Clear" which presumably means a blank
password.

I didn't find mention of a CMOS reset jumper somewhere on the mobo.
That would load the defaults from EEPROM into the CMOS table. There was
a reset on the Exit screen when you leave the BIOS config but obviously
you first have to be able to boot the computer and get into the BIOS
screens.

If you do manage to reset the BIOS (jumper or BIOS), it looks like
you're stuck leaving this computer always powered on and hooked to a UPS
so power to it never drops. The battery is only needed to provide power
to maintain the CMOS copy of the BIOS settings. I've seen a couple
mobos that wouldn't power up with a dead or missing CMOS battery but
it's rare. In your case, you won't be booting anyway since you're
keeping the computer always powered up to make sure to retain the BIOS
settings copied into the CMOS table. While this scenario is not
possible if the laptop is truly employed as a portable platform, I know
a lot of folks that use a laptop as their desktop which means it could
be left always powered up.