yeah I have done this on my 486 board, didn't use any special wire just normal kind of wire.

have look in this thread page 2
Help identify this 486 opti motherboard

I didn't do anything special at all, soldered battery to wires and sticky tape battery to back of the case away from any wires, for me its a temporary solution which has been more of a medium term-long term fix until one day I bother to get a external battery

treeman wrote:

yeah I have done this on my 486 board, didn't use any special wire just normal kind of wire. […]
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yeah I have done this on my 486 board, didn't use any special wire just normal kind of wire.

have look in this thread page 2
Help identify this 486 opti motherboard

I didn't do anything special at all, soldered battery to wires and sticky tape battery to back of the case away from any wires, for me its a temporary solution which has been more of a medium term-long term fix until one day I bother to get a external battery

Wow, thanks for the quick response. Your thread is fantastic and I am in a very similar position. My keyboard connector took some corrosion but I don't think I'll need to replace it - still works fine and most of it is gone too. Can I ask what you used to scrape the corrosion off? Paintbrush/toothbrush/even plastic fork are too squishy, butter knife is too hard.

I'll update the thread with my bodge job + battery case - I might just use electrical tape + speaker wire. Cheers

I used one of these cleaning little rugs that come with sunglasses along with a long plastic spulger tool for hard to reach places, can wrap the wipe around the spulger and use it to wipe, nothing fancy or professional but works for me

Awesome, thank you. I'll see what the local hardware store has - plastic seems to be the way to go.

Addendum, when I plug the video card into any of the first three ISA slots, the machine appears to either reboot or freeze during POST or in the BIOS - I guess I have not managed to successfully clean the ISA slots. Is there any way to do this safely? I've tried a credit card with a rag + isopropyl, white vinegar flush, etc but I think the corrosion might be under the slot itself.

So, I cleaned up and soldered two old GPU fan wires in place. I heatshrunk the length of them with the intention of running the battery as far away from the mainboard as possible 😊.

looks good, that looks definitely like a safe length 😀

I was looking at your original picture and two of the traces going from the keyboard connector right past c11 look pretty corroded you may have to jump wire around it if the acid got too deep to clean.

As for the isa its hard to say it could be inside the slot or a trace or resistors around the slot that got damage somwhere.

I have these cheap Chinese jewellers glasses from ebay but they work quiet good, it takes time but I scan the whole area visually with them, alot of the time you notice stuff that is obvious damage that looks ok with naked eye.
Even taking pictures with a good camera on high magnification is good way to get a second opinion vs your normal eye vision

Oh yes also I found that soldering to the barrel battery terminals is a bit harder then usual, may need a little extra flux to make it hold