Toshiba 110cs Rip...

[Wappynutter]

So just a friendly reminder to cut out or unplug and remove those aging parcels of death attached to your vintage stash..
Battery corrosion claims another victim from my collection.
Rotted the pentium chip clean off the board. Even if my soldering skills were first class, look at those pads, those traces, those veers.... and why suspend the processor over a hole with heatsinks either side of the board like that?. Asking for trouble with those traces if you ask me.
Now to pray for my 110ct and 210cs in the stash..
Both had batteries removed earlier in their storage life but have issues after being stored with the corroded unit.

 

[3lectr1c]

Unfortunately those varta batteries ended up in laptops from every brand around then. Not all laptops have them, but you can be sure at least one laptop from every brand does...
Toshiba, all of them have them, through to the early 2000s even.
Some of them hide away, like in the ThinkPad 760 series, which have them inside the keyboard palmrest.
So many laptops are doomed to die due to those things. So sorry to hear that yours fell victim.
I hope the 430CDT I just bought (tested to post...) doesn't end up too far gone. I've had cases where they're working fine, then you go in to remove the leaky battery and the corrosion cleanup breaks connections that were just barely holding on before... one can still be working, yet already be too far gone at the same time.

 

[VERAULT]

Was this a libretto?

 

[3lectr1c]

Pretty sure it’s a Satellite. There was a Libretto 110ct but not a 110cs. The Librettos do have one of those varta batteries in them too though! A smaller one (2 cell I think, the satellite 110 has a 3 cell and a massive 6 cell that uses double wide coin cells in it).

 

[Wappynutter]

Yeah it was the Satellite, that 9 cell was connected beside the keyboard connector. When I pulled it it removed the pins. I didn't think the damage was too bad topside but turning the board over revealed the carnage.
The smaller cmos cell came out easier and the connector stayed put. That pack was only just beginning to turn.
Makes me wonder how no liquid leaked but corrosion happened. These batteries are sat in their own shelf too above the board only connected by the cables and plugs.
Must be capillary action via the wires. Note the damage in the lower shell. What a nightmare, poor old system.

 

[3lectr1c]

Wow! That one doesn't even look that bad at all... I've seen far worse. Shows how little damage can completely wreck a board. And yes, they wick down the wires and then wreck the board... Nasty stuff.
I've heard even of an account that the power board in an Apple PowerBook 3400 got wrecked by one of those. For reference, the battery is in the top left of the computer and the power board is at the bottom middle, with the battery being attached via long leads. The wicking effect was bad enough that it damaged the power board, on the entire other side of the laptop, just like that.

 

[Wappynutter]

Wow, poor old Mac..I just think it was bad luck and a bad design with the processor in this satellite. It was like the heatsinks wicked the acid to the pads and traces. Being suspended by the traces over a hole made the slightest corrosion a death sentence.
You can see by the photo that damage was near impossible to see on first inspection but upon lifting out the floppy drive etc.. exposed the ugly truth.

 

[Wappynutter]

You mentioned earlier about going in and upon clean up causing the damaged board to give up. I think I may have another laptop about to do this due to its already fragile state.
I mentioned the 2 other Satellite machines and believe the 110ct may have just done this.
It posted but had problems, errors and what ever. I wiped the board down, topside corrosion is limited to the battery plugs and pins, not took the board out yet but wiping the battery plug areas with ipa and testing later that day it now fails to display. Might just be having a hissy fit as I attached a floppy drive but we will see over the weekend after a full removal and wash down. Fingers crossed.

 

[3lectr1c]

Now you're making me nervous for when my 430CDT gets here... It shares the same design and batteries as your units do.
I hope your second one isn't having the same problem.

 

[Wappynutter]

Fingers crossed for you. Let's hope the previous owner did the right thing and removed those little packets of death.
As for my second unit.... I'm sure it's probably died too. At least my 3rd unit is still posting as of yesterday. I'll try not to wipe off any corrosion.
Oh well, we'll see over the weekend if I can save 2 of the 3. Dare not get the white vinegar and ipa out now incase I curse myself.

 

[3lectr1c]

I'll try not to wipe off any corrosion.

Thing is I don't think that's a good solution either - then battery gunk left on the board could corrode more. It's in impossible situation if you get unlucky. Sure, my CTX EzBook 800 worked before I took it apart, removed a leaking varta barrel battery, and cleaned up the mess it made, then after that it didn't work, but it would have still been dead eventually if I didn't. That's the tough part.

Fingers crossed for you. Let's hope the previous owner did the right thing and removed those little packets of death.

Oh, I'm sure they didn't. The seller wrote 'cant find bios" in the description while showing it on at the normal Toshiba setup screen. My guess is that because it doesn't say "BIOS" anywhere that they might have thought they weren't there? I don't think they're tech savvy. And if it really doesn't post, then I should be able to get my money back because they showed it running in the photos...

 

[Wappynutter]

On a plus they didn't use the old line "untested".
If it posts to bios for now it may be okay.
I say that with confidence and faith. 30 year old tech can be temperamental as I keep finding out.
If You're unsure of the authenticity of the working image of the machine just Google search the advert images and check for duplicates online incase they have used stock or previously share images off the Web.

 

[3lectr1c]

If they stole images from somewhere then it will be easy to tell. The one in the photos had the power button missing, the inner button still there but the plastic bit gone. If it’s there, I’ll know.
I was a bit nervous about that as the the photos of it on had a different background than those with it off showing the external condition, but then I saw a speck of dust on the screen that was noticeable, present in all the photos. So if they did steal them, it was all from one place.
Anyway. I hope it turns out well.

 

[Wappynutter]

Fingers crossed... share the continued adventures of the 430cdt once it arrives. We like a happy ending where vintage tech is concerned.

 

[3lectr1c]

I got so lucky.

There’s the inside of the larger of the two varta batteries in my 430CDT. As you can see, only a few cells are JUST starting to leak. Neither battery had any corrosion going down the wires yet, the motherboard is corrosion-free.
I can’t believe I got this lucky, I thought I’d at least have corrosion in the battery sockets.

Laptop is alive and well, doing a windows 95 install.

Let me know if you can get any of yours going again!

 

[Wappynutter]

Lucky guy, I'm happy that at least yours survived the Varta purge..lol..
Unfortunately for me I think all 3 systems have died after either a clean or power up.
I'm hoping that at least 1 of them is caps failed and another is caps and screen inverter caps/backlight...
Neither want to display to an external screen now though.
Then it died...
The 210cs showed this..
Then died...

Think I need a recap as corrosion wise both seem way cleaner than the first.
Waiting on some caps then may try to Frankenstein the 2 together..

 

[3lectr1c]

That's a real shame, I hope you can figure out what's up.
The purple caps in your photo there are polymer caps, not electrolytic. They're almost certainly not bad. Check the internal power supply unit.

 

[Wappynutter]

I'm thinking the smd and the brown one unless that too is a polymer as I'm unsure.
Gotta check the power boards in the dstn screen and backlight on the 210 as before it stopped displaying it started flickering and white lines on the screen before it went off.
Hopefully that wasn't another cpu dying before my eyes from rotted traces.

 

[Wappynutter]

Found some hidden corrosion under the pcmcia slots.. how it got there I've no idea..

Sneaky, I've cleaned it best I can. Will rebuild it tomorrow and try again.

Replaced the fdd drive belt while it's in bits. Can't guarantee that'll work either as I spy a tantalum cap and a smd resistor on the board too.

Gotta check the keyboard controller chip as I'm wondering if the system is halting on startup at keyboard check due to the corrosion in the keyboard cable connector as that seems to be the main attack area for the varta assault..

I'll keep picking away at these toshibas... gotta save at least 1 of the 3.

 

[mark0x01]

Saw this thread and decided to check my 100CT.
It has the same problem with the RTC battery.
There is corrosion in and around the pcb battery connector, and it also travelled to the other side of the pcb.

Looks like the gas given off is corrosive, as no sign of anything in the plastic box the battery lives in or the battery.
Corrosion is in both halves of the connector though.
I think I'm going to have to try removing the connector to see how bad it is.

It was a nice example, with doc, floppy and cd along with the right sized bag for it all.
Worked well the last time I fired it up about three years ago.