Another minor saga in the life of SuperFutz! For years, my old Compaq laptop wouldn't run for more than about five or ten minutes on a battery charge, so I just kept it on the charger when I used it. Finally, it started getting strange and had a couple of minor psychotic episodes that prompted me to go battery shopping. A new Lithium-ion battery, fully charged, and it fired right up - for about a half hour, then blinked out suddenly. I dinked around with it off and on for a couple of days, then just ignored it for another week, putting off the revelation that it was fried for as long as I could. This afternoon, glaring at it as I walked past, a brain cell belatedly fired. *CMOS*, it said. Well, duh. So I got the thing apart this afternoon without breaking anything important, pulled sub assemblies until I found the tiny button cell, went out and got a replacement, and put the thing back together with no major parts left over. It works. Slowly, like it always did. You'd think as many desktop systems as I've put together, upgraded, salvaged, cannibalized, and resurrected through the years, I'd have thought of the CMOS battery sooner. Argh... Ron N
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