-About Barrel Batterys in A2000/A4000/A3000

[Lando]

My A4000 never worked again after desoldering the battery.  I had to get a new motherboard on eBay.

[Jope]

Maybe thats right if you have only 1 Amiga and this uses for all things, but if you have more Amigas (Like me!) and you know wich kind of uses give to those Amigas then, not problem if a couple of Amigas not have a Battery.

All the Amigas I have boot to a workbench when I turn them on. If I create any file, be it a disk image or anything, it's going to have a wonky timestamp unless I set the time manually, if the battery is missing..

If its much problem, you can write a Script in the Startup for Set the Date and Hour and Done!. How much time you spend setting a date?.. 10 - 15 seconds?..come on!-

No, I won't come on. :-D Why should I do it manually when I can just replace the leaky battery?

Even then I'd rather set up my tcp/ip-stack to get the new date via ntp than typing it in myself.

[dougal]

Dont't forget the humble A500 Plus. That too has a RTC battery and that too can suffer battery leaks. I have 3 of them and all needed the battery removed, one of them actually died because of very severe leaking.

[alexh]

I read sometime if you remove the Barrel Battery, the Amiga not work, but i m not sure if that are true

It is not true, only the A3000 suffers from having no battery but it still works, you just need to use some software to set BATMEM settings from hard drive. (Assuming you're unhappy with the defaults)

My A4000 never worked again after desoldering the battery.  I had to get a new motherboard on eBay.

What on earth did you do to the poor thing?

Was the death as a result of a lack of skills desoldering the battery OR the amount of damage that had been done before it was attempted? It certainly wasn't the removing the battery. Hundreds of A4000D owners have removed and not replaced their battery.

[dougal]

I had removed the battery on my A4000 before it had any leakage whatsover. A4000 works perfectly.

[Jose]

My 4000D has an "adapter" in the battery place with 3 legs where you can land a barrel type. Shame is, it's so high that you can't fit the last Zorro slot without removing the battery. I never had the patience to try to lower it by cutting the legs a bit...

[Drummerboy]

My A4000 never worked again after desoldering the battery.  I had to get a new motherboard on eBay.

Yeah.. thats the reason of this post.. becouse i hear  that happen, in both Amigas (A2000 / A4000), if you remove the battery and not replace with other (Coin or Barrel) not work again.

[Jope]

Yeah.. thats the reason of this post.. becouse i hear  that happen, in both Amigas (A2000 / A4000), if you remove the battery and not replace with other (Coin or Barrel) not work again.

Then they destroyed something while removing it.. The only Amiga that has potential to stop booting without a battery is the twice-mentioned A3000.

[Zac67]

The only Amiga that has potential to stop booting without a battery is the twice-mentioned A3000.

... which can easily worked around by hitting the three finger salute after the drive has spun up.

[Jope]

... which can easily worked around by hitting the three finger salute after the drive has spun up.

It all depends on what battmem bits your SCSI chain expects you to have set. :-)

I have yet to have an A3000 not boot after amnesia (I have owned three), so with any "modern" (made after '95 or so) drive and correct termination, I'd say you don't need to worry about the battmem..

The potential exists, however. People get hand-me-down computers that are in the same configuration as after they were set up in 1991, and they can contain anything. So make note of the battmem contents before you remove the battery. It's not hard, it will save you a lot of hassle, in the end you probably will end up not needing the settings anyway. But if you do, you'll pat yourself on the back for it.

[Zac67]

Very good advice indeed. It's always better to be safe than sorry later.

BTW, my 1993 Toshiba HDD happens to take too long spinning up every so often - with growing age -, forcing me to reboot. No reason to set the extended timeout though since that takes ages on every boot. Actually it's had two predecessors of same type that died on me under warranty, but this specimen is still surprisingly healthy.

[tokyoracer]

My A4000 never worked again after desoldering the battery.  I had to get a new motherboard on eBay.

What the hell did you do?

[EDIT] I see alexh already asked the same question.

Still if you find yourself that any Amiga that isn't bootable with the battery removed you must have done something stupid if you ask me.

[BinoX]

I've never de-soldered a battery from an amiga.. I find that gently rocking the battery for about 5 mins will break the legs just above the motherboard.. If you do this though, be careful not to use too much force or you may rip other stuff out with it!

[Jope]

I have yet to have an A3000 not boot after amnesia (I have owned three), so with any "modern" (made after '95 or so) drive and correct termination, I'd say you don't need to worry about the battmem..

Finally got around to buying a barrel battery for the latest A3000 I've acquired.

In Amnesia mode, SCSI throughput was around 2MB/s.. Now that I have a working battery and properly configured (basically just set sync=1) battmem, transfers go at 6MB/s..

I'm very happy that I replaced mine. Everyone else's mileage may vary.

(880th post, yay.)

[Damion]

Finally got around to buying a barrel battery for the latest A3000 I've acquired.

In Amnesia mode, SCSI throughput was around 2MB/s.. Now that I have a working battery and properly configured (basically just set sync=1) battmem, transfers go at 6MB/s..

I'm very happy that I replaced mine. Everyone else's mileage may vary.

Many thanks, being somewhat unfamiliar with the A3K I thought the SCSI was simply dog slow (also around 2MB/s here)... had no idea it was capable of that.