I'm updating this post just in case someone is going to Google the same question in the future. 20MB of RAM runs fine on an Olivetti Philos 20 (486SL). Windows 95 RTM runs surprisingly smooth as well on this laptop.

The laptop gave a Timer Sync Error, UNRECOVERABLE POWER-UP ERROR. I partially solved this by replacing the CMOS battery. I couldn't get a hold of a VL3032 battery, so I used a VL2020 instead, which is a fine replacement. Both are 3V rechargable lithium batteries. I was going to replace the 7,2V NiCd battery too, like I did with my Olivetti Philos 48, but it turns out the Olivetti Philos 20 doesn't have that battery and looking at the board, it seems like it isn't supposed to have one either. The capacitors looked fine on visual inspection.

The result of my intervention for me is that the laptop now works half of the time, which is an improvement. After not using it for a while, it works on the first power-up, but if you reboot it the sync error comes back. So basically you get one chance to use it every couple of hours. Once you have successfully booted, the laptop has no issues at all. Now I am typing this, it kinda sounds like a capacitor problem.

One note I want to add, is that if you take an Olivetti Philos apart, you are guaranteed to break most if not all plastic snaps and potentially the screen hinges. Even with a lot of patience and care it still happens. The plastic has become so brittle that it breaks under the slightest stress. So if you want your Olivetti Philos to stay in mint condition, don't disassemble it. If you do disassemble it, be extremely careful.

I do have a bit of an update on this one. The laptops seems to be behaving differently now after a couple of weeks of sitting idle with a new CMOS battery, but it changed for the better. Right now it always shows the Timer Sync Error on the first power up of the laptop. However, when I briefly unplug the power and do a second attempt at powering up, it boots just fine to Windows 95. I tried this multiple times and also after half an hour of use. The behavior seems consistent so far.

I was gonna replace the oscillators and if that didn't work the capacitors too, but I don't mind this behavior too much. I don't think this is too much of a hassle that I want to risk causing damage with my okayish soldering skills. So for now I will leave it like this for as long as it won't get worse again.

I'm not done with the laptop though. The fragile plastics around the hinges is broken, which makes it very hard to open and close the screen. I was able to glue one hinge back together, but the other one I couldn't. I'm gonna try to make a metal skeleton to hold the badly damaged hinge in the hopes to make the hinge more usable again. If it works, I will place an update here. Also, I will probably remove the battery terminals entirely and solder in some pins in it's place. I wasn't able to clean the rust and battery gunk entirely earlier, so I think it may be better to remove them to prevent spreading of the rust and gunk.

There is also some paint damage caused by a sticker (see the picture). I want to try to restore this. What do you guys usually do? Is it better to use some spray paint or to use a pencil brush with plastics paint? It may look like dirt, but truly it has been cleaned properly and it really is paint damage.

I have another update on this project. The Olivetti Philos had a leaking capacitor near an oscillator after all, which has been replaced now. It still seems to spit out the sync error once in a while, but a bit less often, so I am not sure what else to do about it. It seems to be a small improvement so far, but it still works intermittently. Has anyone got any idea what else to do?

I repaired both screen hinges. On one side there was enough plastic remains to reconstruct the construction by soldering a big iron wire into it. It looks as seamless as it and it is sturdy. On the other side most of the plastic was just gone and/or broken in too many pieces, so I had to be creative. I made a copper mount, which I mounted to the motherboard mounting system. It works well, although it may not look perfect. I added some pictures of everything I did to the laptop.

As for the paint damage, I wasn't able to find an exact color match, so I bought the closest color to the original in the store. After painting it looked horrible, so I scratched a car image out of the newly added paint. It looks a bit childish, but it looks better than it was prior to painting.

I also repaired the pop-out mouse mechanism. It wouldn't stay in, because the pin holding the spring was broken. I glued in a nail and now it works like a charm again.

On a sad note two new problems arose.
*I accidentally damaged the floppy disk cable connector. Not the hugest deal from a usability standpoint, but I am a bit sad about it. I might see in the future if I can somehow repair it or maybe replace it with the parts of my broken Olivetti Philos 48, but this might mean mixing the case parts. Alternatively, are parallel floppy drives bootable if I ever need a floppy drive for it? I can imagine they aren't.
*The PC speaker stopped working properly. The connection seems to be fine and it is putting out sound, but it is almost unhearably soft. Does anyone know what could be the problem?

So yeah in short, mixed progress on this project.

It's time for another update. I replaced the floppy disk cable connector with the one from my Olivetti Philos 48. It appears to be compatible: the laptop reads floppy's perfectly again.

I replaced the PC speaker with a new 8Ω speaker. The sound is louder than ever before, so now I can listen to some PC squeaky tunes again. The color of the new speaker doesn't match the old one at all, so it doesn't look as elegant, but I'm just glad it works.

The capacitor replacement seems to have paid off. The still sometimes shows the sync error, but it is a lot less common. The laptop is a lot more reliable now, so I'm glad how things turned out.

There is only one more thing I would like to do: I'd like to find better matching paint somewhere. I'm planning to go look all over my city tomorrow to find a better matching paint so I can redo the paint job. After that the project should be finished and this laptop should be good to last another few years.

For anyone wanting to get a good and reliable retro gaming laptop, I would recommend to stay away from the Olivetti Philos. Sure they may look nostalgic and the built-in soundblasters some models have may be nice, but these laptops are fragile, are hard to work on and are more prone to aging problems than other laptops of this era. Also the lack of documentation is a huge pain and not to mention, they are expensive. Just get a Compaq instead. That will make your life so much easier.

I added a few more pictures of previous steps as well. Just so people looking for documentation on the Olivetti Philos can see what I did exactly.

This should be my final update on this project, since I finished the hardware side of things now. Since my last post I haven't seen the sync error even once, so I guess the new capacitor fixed the problem. After the presence of the new capacitor it has only shown the sync error when the CMOS battery gets unplugged, so I think having good capacitors and having a charged CMOS battery is the formula for success on the Olivetti Philos.

As mentioned, I redid the paint job. Despite the label in the store being exactly the same color as the laptop, the color ended up being quiet a bit darker. I decided to just repaint the entire upside of the laptop and in my opinion it came out great. There is a bit of oily shenanigans from the varnish, but I personally think that is kind of charming. I painted around the logo's with a tiny brush. In the picture you see the final result.

Some may wonder why I document this restoration so elaborately. To those I say: I'd like to help other Olivetti Philos owners with information and potentially with their future repairs. There is hardly any documentation on these laptops online, so I wanted to do my share by sharing my repair experience with this laptop online. I hope my Olivetti, and the Olivetti's of all others for that matter, will live on for many more years to come.

Hi,
Can you give any hints, foto's on how to open a Philos without braking it ? And can you tell me where the CMOS battery is located ?

Thx !

Hey, Sorry for the late reply. The CMOS battery is under the cover next to the PC speaker. You need to be generally careful when taking the laptop apart, but the main thing to be careful about it the plastic holding the screen hinges in place. They almost break already just by looking at it. The best way is to unscrew the back screws holding it in place, bend the screen at 90 degrees and lift the screen up. When you see the entire hinge above the plastic, put the screen down backwards and you should be safe. You should barely have enough cable length to do this if I remember correctly. Keep in mind that even with the right method, there is a high chance of breaking the plastic. Always hold the screen with one hand when unscrewing it.

Strahssis wrote on 2022-03-05, 21:54:

Hi there, […]
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Hi there,

Last year my Olivetti Philos 48 died: it no longer turned on. It was my favorite retro gaming laptop, so I tried my best to repair it, but with no success. I had been looking for a new one since then, but these Olivetti's aren't that common and they are expensive when you do find them. This week I finally picked up an Olivetti Philos 20 that requires some work, for only €25,-. The internal battery leaked, but luckily there had been no significant damage to the motherboard yet, so it still works. I will take it apart soon to completely clean it and while I am at it, I may replace the CMOS battery and the 7,2V NiCd battery as well (I have no idea what that NiCd battery is for, but it started to leak in my other Olivetti, so I think I'd better replace it in advance.) Sadly the Olivetti Philos 20 isn't as suitable for retro gaming with it's monochrome passive matrix screen, but I am still happy I got it in my collection now.

The backstory aside, I'd like to install Windows 95 RTM on it, which should be possible on a 486SL, but 4MB of RAM seems a bit small for Windows 95. I want to extract a RAM module from my broken Olivetti Philos 48, which would add an additional 16MB to my Olivetti Philos 20. There is little documentation about the Olivetti Philos, so I would like to ask: does any of you guys know what is the maximum amount of RAM the Olivetti Philos 20 can support? Can it support a total of 20MB? Thanks in advance!

All the best,

Miko, Strahssis

Hy Miko,

I have a philos 22 with the same error, electronic seems good, is there a way (i think floppy) to reset this error?
Thank you so much
Mauro

Hi Mauro,

Since I have described multiple issues in this thread, so I'm not completely sure which error you're talking about. I assume you're talking about the Timer Sync Error. For as far as I know, there is no utility diskette available for this. Besides, with this error you won't get to a stage where you can boot from a diskette. To fix error this I ended up replacing two capacitors on the motherboard. Please look at the pictures to see which ones. These SMD capacitors will look fine on the surface, but with a magnifying glass you may find a bit of junk on the sides, which means they started to leak and are no longer good. I hope this helps and good luck! 😀

All the best,

Miko