Loss of Powers

[LunarMist]

Every time I push my tool into the hole in the laptop's bottom, failure occurs. The clock goes to 2018, it wants Win 11, and the camera and mics are reenacted. There does not seem to be any CMOS battery or like that to control the BIOS. If there is no insertion then the battery will drain fairly quickly.
This defect will be very annoying to the users and I just purchased a new Hyndix P51 SSD for it.

 

[Mercutio]

Is this your LG? my guess is that you have a short somewhere. If you have any guesses as to the cause, you could try covering those areas with electrical tape.

 

[LunarMist]

It is not any of my LG GRAM laptops, but one of my Fujitsu laptops. Why do you think there is a short? Removing the back makes no difference.

 

[Mercutio]

I've seen completely random shorts between chassis and mainboard reset a CMOS battery. Your symptoms sound like a drained CMOS battery, especially the time change. You definitely do have a little coin battery on your device somewhere, but some systems are pretty good at hiding them.

 

[LunarMist]

Well, crap. Evidently there actually is a CMOS, but it's inaccessible without significant disassembly.
That is surprising, since the construction is really good quality and clever otherwise.
Is there any risk to operating without the battery power?

 

[sedrosken]

It seems like it'd be more annoying than anything -- needing to reset the clock, needing to reconfigure the boot order if the default one doesn't work, toggling options for peripherals you might have customized.

 

[LunarMist]

There is a U-Tube video with some (probably Japanese) guy taking apart what I think is the same model, but there is no audio dialog and some parts are not shown like the battery. I think the battery must be on the back side of the motherboard. There are numerous little connectors and ribbon cables that would need to be R&R. There is risk in taking it apart and damaging something. Unfortunately Fujitsu no longer supplies client computers in the states. I may just write up some instructions for resetting the BISO.

Maybe by later this year I will get another laptop and the user can have the oldest GRAM.

 

[CougTek]

Every time I push my tool into the hole in the laptop's bottom, failure occurs.

My immediate question is: what tool and which hole? I know of many things that would fail if you'd push some kind of tool in a hole on their bottom...

 

[LunarMist]

I insert some kind of micro pokie tool like the smallest of the JIS slotted. Obviously the hole is not going to be on the top or front. I agree there should be a better method, but the LGs have no holes at all or other activation methods. Maybe it's a Japanese vs. Korean thing?

 

[LunarMist]

After 14 days the battery charge is at 50% without poking the switch. Isn't that quite a loss or what do you guys see on laptops?

 

[Mercutio]

I don't really let mine sleep like that. My laptops are usually off if I'm not using them. Past experience says it's not entirely unreasonable.

 

[LunarMist]

That is with the power off. The membraneous switch electronically disconnects the battery completely for long term storage. Due to the dead coin cell, the BIOS is then lost.
It doesn't go back on until the AC adapter is connected. It may be that the Li-ion battery aging is a factor as it was made in Q1 2018?

 

[Mercutio]

That sounds like a laptop that has seen better days. Is it 7th or 8th generation Intel? That would probably be the factor in whether or not I'd bother to work on it.

 

[LunarMist]

Yes, it is the 8650U. I'm trying to keep it going for a family member to use until after Win 10 dies out in 2025 Oct. I assume by then we will be forcibly on Windows 11 or Part 12.
It was a really nice machine, the best and lightest laptop I ever had and the last made in Japan.

 

[Mercutio]

I'm sure there's a poorly made video of some Indian dude disassembling one that'll show you how to do an internal battery swap.