Here’s a handy trick for any of you who, like me, have not only taken to retro computing in general but the Amstrad NC100 notepad in particular.

I was frequently being told that the machine’s back-up CR2032 coin cell was running low. This despite it being installed fresh out of the packet, and not long enough ago for me to expect such warnings.

I did worry that the cell was actually being used and so might be running low, if the four AAs, also installed fresh, weren’t cutting the mustard. So I took an opportunity to brush the battery bay terminals which featured the inevitable insulating acid burns of leaky batteries from years gone by. The terminals on my machine weren’t too badly oxidized, but there was some cruft so I did what I could to clean it up and ensure a decent battery connection.

But no joy: I still got periodic lithium cell voltage warnings.

And when you get a warning, you have no option but to turn the machine off and on again, and hope you’ll be let in this time.

However, I began to spot a pattern. The warnings seemed to come after the NC100 had been put down too heavily or shaken a little. Could it be a connection issue?

The coin cell bay is basically a space in the case that exposes the positive terminal and the motherboard-mounted negative terminal — as the picture above shows. There’s a lid that pushes the cell onto the negative connector, but there’s a lot of space around the cell. You need some, so that it’s not a pain to replace the thing, but I wondered if there was a sufficient gap around the battery to allow it to move and momentarily lose full connection with the spring-mounted positive terminal.

There was only one thing to do: put something soft and spring into the gap to keep the positive terminal touching the back-up cell. I used a small wedge of spare paper.

And it seems to have done the trick.

Now I can’t be scientifically certain about the effect of the ‘fix’ since it coincides with the use of a memory card, and that could have something to do with the end of the battery warnings. But I’m fairly sure the wedge was the solution. Let me know if it works for you.

There are more tips on my NC100 Tips and Tricks page