Armada E500 Help w/ RTC battery

Archived from groups: comp.laptops,comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Has anyone successfully changed the Real Time Clock/CMOS battery in a
Compaq E500 laptop? Can you help me?

A few weeks ago the clock began to reset to 1980 when the power cord was
removed. The RTC battery is a coin watch battery, Mn02-Li chemistry,
CR2016 type.

The only "catch" is that Compaq has to make things difficult by
soldering tabs to the battery and wire leads to a connector.

I have tried this with two brand new CR2016 batteries: soldered the
wires, checked the voltage at the connector for 3V, and attached the
batteries, but the RTC clock will not be powered by this battery. It
still resets each time.

It still runs however as long as the E500 is powered by the AC/DC power
converter.

Otherwise, the laptop works perfectly. It's inconvenient, plus I lose my
power-on password, device settings, Compaq brightness settings each
time.

I've posted on the HP help forum, but no luck so far.

- michael