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386SX with CMOS battery soldered on

R

rtl

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This is on behalf of a family member whose 'vital' office computer will not boot anymore. It often gives a message that the battery is dead. As I walked him thru troubleshooting over the phone, he could not find a battery. So he has taken this "Austin Computer Systems" 386sx to a repair shop. They found the battery soldered on the mobo however, apparently there are no markings on it as to voltage. I have not been able to find any specs on this board. Can anyone advise if a typical 3.3V battery will work? I don't think it has one of those Dallas DS1287 clock chip (see thread "CMOS battery mystery"), but I don't really know for sure...but will try to find out.
rl.
 
If it looks like a miniature "barrel" then it is 3.6 volts.

BAT-2090.jpg
 
I've seen some coin batteries soldered in as well, in fact, I was just looking at a MoBo with one the other day.

If it looks like a quarter, it's 3V.

Both are still readily available though.
 
My DSI 386 has one of the soldered on barrel battery, it was 3.6V, but i modified to use a 3.3V watch battery, works just fine.
 
Plenty of 386 systems also had a 4 pin header next to the battery for an external battery.
 
Plenty of 386 systems also had a 4 pin header next to the battery for an external battery.
Click to expand...
Noting that some of those motherboards also have a jumper to select whether the 'internal' battery or the 'external' battery is used.
 
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