Replacing CMOS Battery On A Gateway ML6720 Laptop 

You're welcome. The laptop should still power on and boot even with a dead or missing battery, though there have been a few out there that refuse to do anything without that battery. As far as thinking you lost everything, you got away with it this time. ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS back up your data. Technology has no sympathy. This video you just watched, I have 4 working copies of it, in case, in case, in case. That's how important it is to back up your data. I'm a retired computer service technician, I have seen it all.

Absolutely! One of the biggest complaints was on some of the older Dell laptops which required COMPLETE disassembly including removing the screen and the mainboard just to replace the hard drive. In actuality, it was quite well designed and I've done the complete disassembly, replacement, and reassembly in about 8 minutes. Sure it's longer than it needs to take, but 8 minutes isn't bad at all. Towards the end of my "tenure" of doing that stuff, I saw a general shift to those powerhouse notebooks, they were super-thin and light, had a blazingly fast processor, and no serviceability. They also ran screamingly hot and generally cooked themselves to death in short order. The rear drum brakes on the wife's car (2000 Camry) have threaded holes in the drum for easy removal--just thread a couple of bolts in the holes and alternately tighten them down, and it drives the drum right off now matter how stuck they may be. That was designed to be serviced!

Mine is still running to this day. I still use it when I travel. It's still stock except for the hard drive, which failed. I replaced it with an SSD, and it made an absolute world of difference.

I agree, modern laptops are ridiculous! They are TOO integrated. You're very welcome for the video.

Interestingly enough, I was at Dollar Tree a few weeks ago picking some of those up! Some old lady had pulled her car out of a spot and was then stuck in the aisle. Some other lady went to see if she could help and I went over too. She claims the car runs but it won't move. The other lady tried the car and had no trouble pulling it into a spot. She then called a family member to help her. I don't know if the old lady forgot how to drive or if there really was a problem with the car, but at least it was safely in a spot again. One of those 2032 batteries is for my dad's computer, which I need to do some work on. Possibly might video it. But that wouldn't be live for a while yet.

Some machines yes, some no. Most do that. The primary battery in this machine was dead when I got it, and continues to be to this day. The purple charging light comes on for a while, then goes off for a while. There's even a "battery reconditioning" option in the BIOS of this machine, and I ran it once, left it for several hours, and nothing ever happened.

That makes sense. Yeah, it seems like after the five year mark, it's hard to find a genuine replacement for those things. Especially since Gateway has become what it is.

I find it rather amazing the laptop itself has lasted this long. It was a derelict machine that was given to me, I resurrected it, and now of course it obeys its master.

Yeah, I remember when you made a video on it in the past. It seems pretty well equipped; I was slightly jealous at the time.

I couldn't believe the specs on it when it was given to me. It's too bad it's "aged" so far beyond its original use. It's getting a bit pokey here and there. Never complains, does its job, but the processor speed is a bit light for these times. Let's be realistic, it's well and truly outdated. But old computer might become outdated, but NEVER OBSOLETE!

Many many years ago, some guy I used to work with told me about an old computer he had that he wanted to give me. He said it was a relative's machine, and they gave it to him. The story went that when they needed a computer, they called him, and he recommended a Dell. They went through the whole deal (this is when you'd get them CTO or Configure-to-order by mail), and the relative decided it was too much money. So they went out and bought the machine in question, which happened to be a Compaq. When my coworker found out, he told them they got a computer from hell instead of a computer from Dell. I ended up scrapping that Compaq years ago. I think it was 200MHz, had maybe 128MB of RAM, and I had put Windows 98 on it. Interestingly enough, that computer proved instrumental in my figuring out an early high-speed Internet issue I had. It so seems that my main computer that was working fine, but lost Internet connectivity the next day. I called my provider, and they tested the modem at their end and said it was working and that the problem MUST BE with my computer. Besides the fact that with me that's pretty much impossible, they asked if I had another computer I could test it with. I had outfitted that Compaq with an Ethernet connection and at the time had a cable running across the floor to it. Also, at that time, it was forbidden to have a router, though they'd have no way of knowing if you did (the original TOS (or, as Cortana puts it, "the legal stuff") stated that it was for one computer at a time). Whether I had the router or not was inconsequential, the fact remained that the Compaq worked but the problem WAS with my computer. I had forgotten that the night before, I had run Windows Updates, and apparently one of them borked the Internet connectivity. Needless to say I got that sorted out in no time.

Yeah I was surprised to see a flap right there to replace the battery. That's back when these things were serviceable. Now they're disposable.

It's actually more of a common problem to that type of battery. _Back in my day, ssshhhonny boy,_ they either designed the systems with rechargeable batteries, or they were designed in such a way where the battery was disconnected from the system when it had power or standby power. This laptop wouldn't benefit from either since it's used only a couple of times a year.

Generally, the rule of thumb was anything faster than a 486 needed an active cooling system (usually a faen on the heatsink). Earlier machines didn't even have heatsinks on their processors. Later on they broke all of the rules, as usual, and invented cockamamie cooling systems with heatpipes, half copper, half aluminum, thermal tape, and all kinds of other crazy stuff. Even my old netbook with a 9 inch screen has a faen for its Atom processor! Again, they broke all of the rules, especially nowadays with tabtops or lapblets or phablets or whatever false amalgamation of a word they want to make. Generally, if a processor doesn't have a faen, it's either Apple (Jobs didn't like noise, though some NEEDED faens), or the machine is underpowered.

There were quite a number of HP Professional laptops I've worked on, often needing screens. Sometimes they just failed, other times they were cracked and needed to be replaced. They used Torx screws on those laptops, so immediately I had to break out my special driver set instead of my trusty old Phillips #0 screwdriver. That was turn-off number one. For the rest, the entire machine had to some apart so that you could then remove the screen. Once the screen assembly was removed, you could go ahead and open that all up, I think there were 8 screws under the bezel just to remove the panel. Plus you had to re-route all of the wires. It was a hot mess. Way more difficult than it needed to be. In contrast, many of the later ASUS machines I worked on had the top cover assembly as one whole piece, including the keyboard and touchpad. And of course they made the cables just _that much_ too short for you to be able to work on it comfortably. Didn't matter much, those top covers were usually pretty solid and the keyboard and touchpad almost never needed servicing. The mainboards on the other hand would go bad out of nowhere. Oftentimes the machine was out of warranty, and a new board cost more than the price of the machine. That was well worth the purchase. Computers today are junk!