Hello, I have run into some issues and I want a sanity check before I give up hope.
I have broken off the battery holster and solder pad in a similar manner to Tom1. I tried to repair it by soldering directly to the trace. Then, I ripped off the entire trace, so it is a worse situation than him.
I use my mainboard as a server, so it will never go more than 1-2 hours without power (unless disaster strikes). However, there are some non-negotiable BIOS settings that must be set, so if the BIOS is reset with every unplug, then this is unusable for me. I use a strange software stack that requires a physical unplug of the motherboard rather than rebooting from the operating system.
I attempted the RTC repair so that I could use the main battery as a UPS, but I am willing to live without such a UPS if I can save my BIOS settings.
Which trace? Pictures? Is the trace fully ripped off or still attached on the end?
You or someone else could follow the trace and find another point to connect a wire. But it might be a much smaller point than the original pad. So you might need practice before attempting it.
Keep in mind, the RTC battery substitute module allows the main laptop battery to power the RTC circuit instead of the RTC battery, so if you use the substitute module and no main laptop battery, the RTC circuit will power down any time you remove power from the mainboard, even for a moment.
Someone else will have to clarify if the BIOS re-sets any time the RTC circuit is no longer powered. But I noticed you said the mainboard will never go without power for more than 1-2 hours in most cases. Just be aware, that the battery substitute module doesn’t power the circuit at all if there is no laptop battery connected.
That should be an easy to fix for a micro soldering repair shop, you just scrape away solder mask until you arrive at where the pad connected to previously and then you solder on the substitute module as usual.
Don’t do this as a noob, find someone who is experienced in micro soldering and has the proper tools.
I have fixed the problem. I lost the original battery holster and miraculously Framework sells every part except that. So I had to DIY a solution out of Dupont jumper and a power button header connector. I just stripped the end off of some wires and electrical taped it onto some batteries. I have done this with both the original battery as well as a standard non-rechargable CMOS battery, but I prefer the non-rechargeable battery.
I took some other cables, cut them shorter and soldered them back together, then soldered them back to the motherboard.
The connection that I thought was done for actually had a decent amount of trace left, I just had to scrape away the top layer of the motherboard. I then dropped a blob of solder onto the trace. Then I covered it with several layers of clear nail polish so that this connection would not come loose. Then I scraped off some of the nail polish and soldered the jumper cable to the blob of solder. Also the hot iron burned through the nail polish so I was able to make good contact that way. Then I covered the whole thing in even more nail polish so that it would not come loose during testing. Then I tested it and it works great.
Wait, non-rechargeable battery? You can’t use a non-rechargeable. The laptop was made only for rechargeables, it will be trying to charge any battery you plug in. A non-rechargeable will be damaged and over time may leak.
Is there any information regarding how long the main battery will keep the BIOS settings for when fully discharged?
I already saw a user who experience this loss on the new AMD 13.5 of settings after it was suspended for a few days and I assume 11th gen has worse power drain?
The AMD boards don’t have an RTC battery at all by default, so it’s fully dependent on you not running down the main battery.
11th gen boards do have an RTC battery, and with this rework fix it should be kept healthy. Presuming you didn’t keep the old RTC battery that potentially already saw excessive wear before the fix. I feel like I recall reading that a healthy RTC battery should take weeks at least before depleting. Someone correct me if they recall more exactly the time Framework has said.
Are you maybe thinking of the first rework offered? IIRC that was to allow the RTC battery to be charged by the main battery as well as (or maybe instead of) from mains. This rework removes the battery for a PCB and powers the RTC from the main battery.
Right, I think this rework makes the 11th gen more similar to the current models that use the main battery as an RTC but I have not seen mentioned how long the RTC can function when the battery depleted.
IIRC the drain on the RTC circuit is high for 11th gen (part of the issue I think) so I assume it will be worse than later models.
I’ve replaced the RTC battery on one of our two 11gen laptops. Soldering was done at a local electronics repair shop, but before taking the laptop there I had slotted the replacement board in myself, wanting to avoid complications due to the fragility of the holder.
As others have mentioned, the replacement board is considerably thicker than the battery cell it’s replacing, so inserting it to the holder was a slightly fraught process.
At first the replacement was slotted in fine, but it looked to me like the small top tab of the bottom right “arm” of the holder wasn’t over the replacement circuit. So I tried to gently push it back while pushing/holding the circuit down.
You guessed it, that broke that bottom right arm off:
Despite that the RTC replacement still seems secure. The shop didn’t seem to have any issues doing the solder, and in fact they discounted from their standard “mainboard repair” of $99 down to $75 since I had only left a trivial (to them) part of the job to be done.
The laptop is working fine, both on AC and off.
Any ideas on what type of epoxy/glue I could use to strengthen this so it doesn’t risk jiggling out of place due to the missing arm?
I don’t want to use any random glue in case of heat/conductivity issues.
Once this is done and the laptop has been through some daily use shakedown, I’ll try this with the other 11gen in the fleet. I’ll try to be less “greedy” on that one.
Epoxy has many different types, so I would guess that you can find one that is heat resistant. I would avoid any other glue, as there is nothing like Epoxy. I used it with plywood on boats and laminated wood was used by the Gougeon brothers in Michigan to manufacture early wind energy that did not use steel that ended up fracturing in competitors models. Of course they could not compete with GE for government contracts.
When I did the replacement myself a couple weeks ago I thought i would break it taking out the ML1220. And when i inserted the dummy I was almost 100% sure it would break. But I was lucky and it did not break.
