How to replace the CMOS RTC battery in a Gericom N35AS1 or N35BS1 laptop

Thanks for your suggestion Ubrales, much appreciated.

I have done a RAM replacement in a Dell and it was very easy. The panel section between the keyboard and the lid lifts up and the keyboard is then unscrewed and slid backwards. It's a quick job.

In the Gericom the upper working surface appears to be a single panel entirely surrounding the keyboard. It seems like there are more screws going in up from the base along the outer edges in the rear half of the machine but they are hidden. No further panels are available for removing in order to get at them. Definitely a mystery. Maybe have to try separating the two halves of the machine entirely and watch all the bits (and bytes) fall out. Yuk.

I shall continue to look at videos etc. for ideas, but you know how it is. Some of these things are put together like Chinese puzzles (or Taiwanese in this case) and no two are alike. Keep the ideas coming everyone !!

Sorry, I should have included that I had checked under the rubber feet - no luck. I've poked around on the web a bit more and the best idea (from some InsideMyLaptop How-To's) at the moment is to see if the keyboard is held down by small latches placed around its own periphery and going under the palm-rest. That would save trying to remove the palm-rest (the present obstacle) or burrowing in from underneath (no use anyway if the RTC battery is mounted above the MOBO). I'll check and report back.

Well, that was fun!

First the good news: the keyboard is held down by 3 latches at the front. Pop those and up it comes. Lift away the blanking sheet underneath it and voila - acres of metal and a couple of lids to lift. One hides the WLAN bay (empty), the other the RAMs (nice to know when upping to 1GB next week).

Now the bad news: no RTC battery.

Not to give up, we assume that, in Taiwan, "under the keyboard" could have a variety of meanings. So out with the tools and unscrew everything in sight, until just the MoBo is hanging off the bottom of the screen, surrounded by some recalcitrant steel plating. Not to mention a pile of things on the table and approx 25 individually sized screws safely tucked away in the deep pile of the living room carpet (just kidding). Hmm, still no RTC battery.

Thinking cap on: surely they couldn't make it that hard to find... Shine a torch in all the recesses and lo, something small flat and round, glinting in the darkness.

Coming up for air, we discover that "under the keyboard" was a bit too cheeky - "tucked away in a corner recess under the stiff-ish HDD connector ribbon and then hidden under a black plastic mini-tarp rendering it invisible to the untrained eye" would have been a better way of writing the skeletal user manual.

Our hero reaches for the hammer and painstakingly reassembles his new found friend until it sits gleaming and fresh-from-the factory again. 4 hours of life expended for naught but a decent learning experience. Cup of tea, sleep.

Back to the good news: This morning, bright and chipper (yeah, right) and armed with a brand new CR2025 and a small crosspoint we whip off the cover plate, out with the HDD, machete our way through to the little black mini-tarp and in a couple of shakes the new RTC cell is in and the tank is up and running and welcoming me to XP. Hours booked: yesterday 4, today 0.1. Please don't tell the children.

Just one point: Opinions differ as to whether the power supply should be connected during the battery change. Theory (1): bad, bad, bad, you'll blow everything up. Theory (2): no need. There's an Elco somewhere that will keep the data alive while you replace the battery if you're a bit nippy about it. Theory (3): while modern machines store the keys to the castle in flash ROM, older ones don't so if the CMOS dies totally then it's back to the drawing board (and possibly Hiren's BootCD). Flipping a lithium cell (and then hunting for it under the sofa) I chose to keep the machine on life support (i.e. AC connected) and didn't even need to reset the TOD. So there you go, horses for courses.

My advice to newbies and would-be's: Go for it, rip the thing up, find out how it works, you can only wreck it, and nowadays that's not as easy as you fear, what with the mountain of support tools and websites around today, such as:
Tom's Hardware and of course Mr Ubrales
who pointed me in the right direction. Thank you Bro, I owe you one!!

Well, thanks, but it was really just anger management ... ;o)
I hope others can profit from these travails.
Roger and out