I inherited one of those also. With the same leaky battery. I never was able to figure it out. One thing though, the guy who gave it to me left it in storage while wintering in warmer climes. When he got back, the thing would fail. He figured that the battery discharged so much that when the computer was finally powered on, the charging current for the battery was too much for the blocking diodes and fried them. You might look at those. Naturally, clean the area around the battery with isopropyl alcohol and look for damaged traces.