[MakinMan]

there is also a battery soldered into the Simm card Attachment 483114
it is the big black box below the red dimm switches. on mine there was a standard CR2032 on the mother board. some other models they are soldered in i believe.

[MarioMP]

Thank you.
Do you know what that battery is used for?
Would this stop the computer from booting up?
Also, are there settings I should backup on our machines? I read posts from other brands talking about machines being useless without configuration files!
Are our settings stored on this SIMM card that I see on eBay for over $1,000 or on HDD? If HDD, should we be making backups?

there is also a battery soldered into the Simm card
it is the big black box below the red dimm switches. on mine there was a standard CR2032 on the mother board. some other models they are soldered in i believe.

[Brian L]

I'm not a computer guy, so can't help you with your bios problems, but that is separate from the machine's software. The Centurion software is contained in the eProms that are on the Simm card, and it's permanently there. You do need to replace the battery on the Simm card if it's shot, that will maintain the software being available for the computer. The battery on the computer motherboard is for the computer itself, that's where you can be loosing the ability to read the bios and bring up the pc. That will be loaded with DOS and gets the Centurion software off the Simm card. Parameters for the machines are fairly simple and can be hand typed in from a list in 10 minutes or so, or saved on a floppy and loaded back into the machine from that.

When I got my machine it had been without power for 5 years and I had to replace both batteries and rebuild the computer itself, power supply was bad, and we replaced the HDD with a flashcard and transferred all the data from the Simm card onto that and ran from that from then on. A friend did all the computer work for me, but the nice thing is everything for these machines on the computer end can be replaced or rebuilt with the right parts. The ISA backplane motherboards are getting scarce, but searching eBay will usually turn up whatever is needed.

If this is all beyond your abilities, like it would be for me, then I suggest you contact Sporty Bob on this forum and he can get your machine running or rebuilt.

[MarioMP]

Thank you Brian. That helps a lot.
I will get the MB timing thing/battery replaced and hopefully that's all there is to it.

I'm not a computer guy, so can't help you with your bios problems, but that is separate from the machine's software. The Centurion software is contained in the eProms that are on the Simm card, and it's permanently there. You do need to replace the battery on the Simm card if it's shot, that will maintain the software being available for the computer. The battery on the computer motherboard is for the computer itself, that's where you can be loosing the ability to read the bios and bring up the pc. That will be loaded with DOS and gets the Centurion software off the Simm card. Parameters for the machines are fairly simple and can be hand typed in from a list in 10 minutes or so, or saved on a floppy and loaded back into the machine from that.

When I got my machine it had been without power for 5 years and I had to replace both batteries and rebuild the computer itself, power supply was bad, and we replaced the HDD with a flashcard and transferred all the data from the Simm card onto that and ran from that from then on. A friend did all the computer work for me, but the nice thing is everything for these machines on the computer end can be replaced or rebuilt with the right parts. The ISA backplane motherboards are getting scarce, but searching eBay will usually turn up whatever is needed.

If this is all beyond your abilities, like it would be for me, then I suggest you contact Sporty Bob on this forum and he can get your machine running or rebuilt.