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Advent laptop N340S8

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by jimklallsoo

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Hi,

I have an Advent laptop model number N340S8.
The last coupld of weeks i have been getting CMOS battery low press F1 to run setup or Press F2 to load defaults.

When i press F1 or F2 the laptop starts up fine and when i open the power option from within Windows XP it tells me that the battery power is at 96%.
I assume this model of laptop has it's own on board CMOS battery but can anyone tell me for sure if this is this case.
I would also greatly apprecite if anyone could let me know where the CMOS battery can be located if indeed it does have one.

One final question do all laptops have a CMOS battery as well as the lithium rechargeable battery?

Thanks in advance to all who take time out to respond

7 replies

by tig2

Best solution- take it to a tech or call your manufacturer

I have a sneaky that Windows is looking at the laptop (rechargable) battery life, not the CMOS battery. Your CMOS battery is a flat nickel sized battery on the motherboard itself. I have heard of them going flat, I have never actually seen it happen on a computer. A few PDAs but not on a laptop. Which means nothing, really. I know that it can happen.

A quick Google search found a user group for the Advent. They may have information that can help. Find them at: http://www.w00tw00t.co.uk/support/viewtopic.php?t=390&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

Good Luck!

Edited for clarity

by jimklallsoo

I appreciate the reply.
However, I am almost certain that the battery the system is looking at is the CMOS battery as the laptop powers on without the AC adaptor inserted. Hence runnig on the lithum rechargeable battery and runs ok on the battery which as i stated is showing as having 96% life.
The only problem is the F1-F2 messge on startup...

by tig2

We are talking about two different batteries. Windows does not, to my knowledge, monitor the CMOS battery. That battery is a small, wristwatch like battery that resides on the MotherBoard and exists to maintain system time and a few other minor details for CMOS exclusively. The battery that Windows looks at is your rechargable battery pack that you are using when you are not plugged into wall power. They are very different things.

The message you are seeing at start-up is a warning that your CMOS battery is going flat. When it does die out, you will no longer be able to boot the computer at all.

There are two different batteries here- one that you can recharge by plugging into wall power and one that you cannot see on the MotherBoard.

I know when I have seen this failure in other devices with similar architecture and running Windows, I had a couple of months to replace the battery on the board. With a hand held device, you buy some time because they can be turned off for extended periods.

Go to your manufacturer or any good repair depot. When they see the message, they will know what part to replace.

Only other option is to open the case yourself and hope that the battery is in a release socket. Take the battery to your favourite parts house and get a new, identical one. Install it. The message will be a thing of the past... assuming that the MOBO doesn't take a hit while the case is open. I have murdered a few in my time. Must keep cats out of the work area!

Truly, for this kind of a problem, your best bet is to find a good repair house. Tell them what the message you are seeing is and how long you have been seeing it. They will take it from there.

Just a thought but BACK UP ALL YOUR FILES NOW!!!!! Don't mean to scream but most repair houses will format your HDD and not necessarily conserve your files.

I should have been clearer the first time. I apologise.

by merlin6r

Sorry, I know I'm posting this months after you asked but it might be of help to someone.. I have an N340S8 its branded Gericom but this and the advent N340S8 appear to be identical, it just depends where you buy it from. I bought this used and by this time was the CMOS battery was FLAT FLAT FLAT, it wouldnt even save the correct time for the clock. On boot up I would get the warning, press F1 or F2 yadda yadda yadda and it would boot up fine, but setting the clock every time was very annoying. Anyway, look at the underside of your N340S8, remove the cover that has the cooling vent on it. You will see in the corner a flat battery like a coin, what we in england still call a 'watch battery'. The battery is a CR2025. didnt have one of those but had a CR2032 which is exactly the same except for being slightly thicker, managed to coax it in very gently. If you are having to go buy a battery i would obviously recommend getting the CR2025 as its the correct one but my 2032 is working great. It now stores all the bios settings (including the time woohoo). The only really annoying thing was that the cmos battery is partly covered by the CPU heatsink/cooler. Instead of scratching around i removed the cooler. When you replace it, loosely tighten all the screws in the order they are numbered, then retighten each by one more turn in the same order to make sure the heatsink sits nice and flat on the CPU. Hope this helps. BTW bought this NS340S8 for ?40, its an intel celeron 900 with 128mb RAM. Next to my Core2Duo machine with 2gb of ram this is pitiful of course, but at ?40 and ?10 for a PC wireless card this is great for surfing, emailing and using MSN messenger. Great little machine, Bargain!!!

by cdixon6901

If you would like the service manual for this laptop you can download both the service manual and Users manual at the following website just as I have done a few moments ago to help my grandson who has a IPC N340S8. Gericom maintain their manuals for the exact same computer laptop and excellent instructions how to strip down the whole system. If you removed the heat sink remember if there was heat displacement paste between CPU and heatsink, it must be replaced before fitting or you will get overheating, the better quality of paste the better heat transfer will work.

http://ftp.acomp.hu/pub/gericom/Notebook/Manuals/Service/Service%20Manuals/

by cdixon6901

"One final question do all laptops have a CMOS battery as well as the lithium rechargeable battery?"

Jim, Laptop manufatures are funny creatures because on some early motherboards they made both the main battery recharage and also the BIOS battery recharable too. If the battery was rechargable they then fitted a small bank of dip switches to switch on and off the BIOS and other BIOS settings. It was only with the manufacturer of small watch batteries which lasted more than 5 years did they start to fit standard small batteries similar to the C2032 or the previous C2025 which I believe the N340S8 has, the C2032 is a tigher fit but can work. These days I think it is fairly standard the battery of choice is on both laptops and desktop computers, saves keeping hundreds of batteries in the desk, lol.

I have just posted a link (which is below too) where you can download a PDF service manual and multi document User manual for your laptop as it was a generic model which was then branded with several professional names like Gericom, HP, Intel and even Advent (PC World's own brand name). The service manual helps with good detail how to disassemble the laptop and great detain about the chips being used on the motherboard. Nice made laptop, well impressed.

Thank goodness Gericom kept their manuals online because everyone else seems to have removed theirs even though their are a good million of these laptops still around.

http://ftp.acomp.hu/pub/gericom/Notebook/Manuals/Service/Service%20Manuals/

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