Re: GRiD 1520 Time Clock Stopped Password

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Posted by William Van Tuyl on June 03, 1998 at 08:28:49: 
In Reply to: GRiD 1520 Time Clock Stopped Password posted by J. Brown on June 01, 1998 at 08:03:23: 
I've had this problem in desktops and in laptops. Usually it is the CMOS battery that dies and sets the CMOS strange. First take out the battery - I'm not sure where and what kind the 15xx use. Its either a coin or cylinder. Try a scan of this board. You then can try to boot-up, more than likely it won't. Then try shorting out the battery leads (without a battery in place) for a few seconds. Then try re-boot, etc. The last resort is to find out which pins on the CMOS to short out to erase the settings. After you get it to reboot (it may not boot to the HD, so try the floppy - press F at the beep - you might have to run the setup program. Oh yeh, some where in this you replace the CMOS battery - usually toward the end of the process. Once you figure it out do it for the other ones. 
LOL, Bill 
: Hi. I have a 1520 and the TOD clock stopped and it gives me a strange date ex ;=/75/?> and says to enter a password. I saw somewhere to call AST tech support and they can help me. Seems like I found a couple of people there that dont have a clue. They told me that my CMOS is bad. I saw a message that the date will be a real strange looking date, which I have, and they can help me. Has anyone ever gotten through a problem like this? I have 4 1520's and they all do the same thing. It's hard to believe that all 4 would have the same kind of problems.
In Reply to: CMOS Battery on 1520 posted by eger on July 06, 1999 at 08:19:48: 
: Where' s the battery hiding? took of back case top. Can't see it.
: How do access to test? 
Depending on the specific model the backup 
battery is ether under the keyboard bezzle
just in front of the memory SIP sockets...
OR... CMOS memory and realtimet clock are 
done by a Dallis semiconducter RTC and there 
is no battery that you can get to (it would 
be imbeded in the chip. 
You will have to remove the display pannel and
Keyboard bezzle to get to it.
The battery is a small purple cylender shuld read 
about 3.4 V end to end... 

In Reply to: Re: Grid 1520 Dallas CMOS Battery Workaround? posted by Shawn on January 26, 19100 at 15:37:12: 
Hi, thanks for the reply! 
The Grid says 1520 right on it... 
Reading some other entries on this board, there 
was a 100m hard drive available. It is a tall one, 
which is why it does not have a floppy drive--there 
just isnt room for both. 
My 1520 does not have the 3.6v litium battery, it uses 
the Dallas chip instead, another post on this board 
mentioned that either one was used, and the motherboard 
is different for each type. 
I did some more research on the Dallas chip, I have 
a 1287A, and I found info on the 1287 at the Dallas 
site. There is an auxiliary battery connection on 
pin 22, but my chip is missing pin 22! Also, the chip
is soldered in, so it will take some work to change 
(my brother has access to vacuum desoldering eqpt). 
The cost of the laptop was $10, and it will cost at 
least that for a new chip :( 
I also played with the external drive...it tries to 
read it when I boot up, but it gets an error message. 
When I press "f" while booting, it gives a different 
error message, something like "floppy boot disk error". 
I tried to access the setup menu every way I could think of...
including typing "r" (and every other letter) while booting, 
but it does not ever go into setup. Is there some other 
magical key sequence to go to setup, or does it need 
a good RTC battery? 
Jim 
: Jim,
: HHmmm...The first thing I have to ask is, are you sure it's a 1520?
: It sounds like you might have a 1550.
: At any rate, I have a 1520 and it is a 286 with a 20 meg 
: hard drive.
: I don't remember a Dallas chip on the motherboard. 
: In fact, if you remove the top cover, you should
: see a 3.6 V Lithium battery (made by Tadiran) on
: the right side.
: Mine does have an internal floppy. You may be able
: to get the external floppy to work with the 1520.
: I said "may" because I've never done it. One thine
: I know you'll need is a copy of conf1520.exe. It is
: on the AST Support website at www.ari-support.com. I don't have a link
: to their ftp section, but do a seach under "grid"
: and you shouldn't have any problems.
: Once you have conf1520.exe, the command you'll need is conf1520 floppy = ext.
: (I think). I'm doing this from memory, so I am probably wrong. :-)
: You can always type 'conf1520 ?' (without the quotes) and it will show you you the command list.
: Good luck,
: -Shawn 
: : Hi, just got a Grid 1520. Has the 100 meg hard drive, 
: : but no floppy drive. The thing won't boot, I take it 
: : that it needs a new cmos battery, but it has the 
: : Dallas real time clock chip instead of a regular 
: : battery. Is there anywhere to plug in a battery? Or 
: : could I solder wires to the Dallas chip to add a 
: : battery to it? 
: : Also...is this computer kind of worthless without a 
: : floppy drive? 
: : Can you connect an external floppy drive to the 25 pin 
: : peripheral connector? I have an external Zenith drive, 
: : with a matching 25pin connector on the cable...would 
: : it work? 
: : Thanks for any help you can give! 
: : Jim

In Reply to: Re: Grid 1520 Dallas CMOS Battery Workaround? posted by Jim on January 26, 19100 at 17:06:57: 
Jim,
In an offline email with Charlie, it seems there were several mother boards used
in the 1520. It looks like we have different versions. 
As far as I know, there is no magic BIOS setup screen. You need conf1520.exe in order to
configure the BIOS. 
Now we have a scary thought: do all versions of conf1520.exe work with all different versions?
HHmmm..... 
Using conf1520, I have not gotten the modem to respond nor have I gotten the unit to recognize
the hard drive. Maybe my version is the wrong one. In my 1520, I had a JVC 20 Meg unit with a 
unique 26 pin connector. I replaced it with another JVC (only 10 Meg) with the same connector.
My 1520 doesn't recognize either hard drive. I would spend more time trying to get it working
but my 1550 has my attention right now. I can only deal with one set of problems at a time. :-) 
-Shawn