Watch out for Motherboard Batteries

[Tim Polmear]

Just something that most will be aware of, but it's easy to get caught
out:
I had an old laptop that I wanted to fire up for word processing, but
the PSU was stuffed so I at last bought a high current power pack to
replace the battery (also stuffed)

I plugged in the plug pack and only the suspend light turned on, then
even that stopped working. Examining the computer I was a little
concerned at the corrosion evident on the serial port pins, so opened
it up.

AAARGHH! A rather large lithium battery had spilled its guts all over
the motherboard sometime in the last 6 years. The hard drive had an
interesting growth of white crystals all over it and exhibited the
kind of deep scaly rust you would normally expect to see after a few
years in the sea. Large areas of the motherboard were eaten away and
even the plastic case had suffered damage.

Into the bin with the lot.

The Moral of the story is, if you've got any old computers you might
end up using one day, take all the batteries out - even if it means
unsoldering them from the motherboard.

 

[KLR]

On 18 Mar 2005 22:45:02 -0600, Tim Polmear <polmear@wn.com.au> wrote:

Just something that most will be aware of, but it's easy to get caught
out:
I had an old laptop that I wanted to fire up for word processing, but
the PSU was stuffed so I at last bought a high current power pack to
replace the battery (also stuffed)

I plugged in the plug pack and only the suspend light turned on, then
even that stopped working. Examining the computer I was a little
concerned at the corrosion evident on the serial port pins, so opened
it up.

AAARGHH! A rather large lithium battery had spilled its guts all over
the motherboard sometime in the last 6 years. The hard drive had an
interesting growth of white crystals all over it and exhibited the
kind of deep scaly rust you would normally expect to see after a few
years in the sea. Large areas of the motherboard were eaten away and
even the plastic case had suffered damage.

Into the bin with the lot.

The Moral of the story is, if you've got any old computers you might
end up using one day, take all the batteries out - even if it means
unsoldering them from the motherboard.

Are you sure it was a Lithium ?
but where there is a Ni-cad battery - a leak is almost guaranteed
after 3 years or so.....


I cant ever recall seeing a lithuim battery leak with age, and
recently have had to replace about 40 of them (on separate boards) in
old equipment (late 1980s vintage)

Strange too that many of the lithiums in question - in spite of having
a 1987 date stamped on them still had full terminal voltage present.
These were 1/2 AA cells

 

[Tim Polmear]

On Sat, 19 Mar 2005 21:39:37 +1000, KLR <kenreed@yahoo.com> wrote:

Are you sure it was a Lithium ?
but where there is a Ni-cad battery - a leak is almost guaranteed
after 3 years or so.....


I cant ever recall seeing a lithuim battery leak with age, and
recently have had to replace about 40 of them (on separate boards) in
old equipment (late 1980s vintage)

Strange too that many of the lithiums in question - in spite of having
a 1987 date stamped on them still had full terminal voltage present.
These were 1/2 AA cells

Hang on, I'l get it out of the bin...

Yes, from what I can read it says "Tadiran Lithium Unorganic Battery
It's about the size and shape of an AA battery.
The entire thing is puffed up and where the side is split there's a
protrusion of brown, chunky pasty stuff.

The ni-cad main battery shows no physical deterioration despite being
dead.

 

[KLR]

On 19 Mar 2005 20:19:05 -0600, Tim Polmear <polmear@wn.com.au> wrote:

On Sat, 19 Mar 2005 21:39:37 +1000, KLR <kenreed@yahoo.com> wrote:


Are you sure it was a Lithium ?
but where there is a Ni-cad battery - a leak is almost guaranteed
after 3 years or so.....


I cant ever recall seeing a lithuim battery leak with age, and
recently have had to replace about 40 of them (on separate boards) in
old equipment (late 1980s vintage)

Strange too that many of the lithiums in question - in spite of having
a 1987 date stamped on them still had full terminal voltage present.
These were 1/2 AA cells


Hang on, I'l get it out of the bin...

Yes, from what I can read it says "Tadiran Lithium Unorganic Battery
It's about the size and shape of an AA battery.
The entire thing is puffed up and where the side is split there's a
protrusion of brown, chunky pasty stuff.

The ni-cad main battery shows no physical deterioration despite being
dead.

amazing - ones I have here have same wording, but are 1/2 aa length !

outer of battery is pink in colour