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Took apart a dead laptop from 2011, found a corroded CMOS battery causing all the boot loops
Found an old Dell Latitude at a swap meet for $12 last Saturday, it kept restarting every 90 seconds, and after chasing RAM and hard drive issues, the little CR2032 battery had leaked acid onto the board, so I cleaned it with vinegar and a toothbrush, popped in a fresh $4 battery, and it booted fine, anyone else had a corroded coin cell wreck a whole machine?
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charliehill5d ago
That vinegar cleanup probably saved you way more than the $4 battery cost. The real killer with those leaks is that the acid keeps eating traces even after you swap the cell, so folks who just toss in a new one without scrubbing the board end up with the same dead laptop a few months later. You got lucky catching it early.
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