T5 (aka W5 Pro) no display FIX!

[yjchoi17]

Another question that I'm gonna answer myself:

TL,DR; Removing the CMOS battery can fix the no display / no boot issue on a T5

A few days ago, my T5 (aka W5 Pro) just turned off in the middle of a web browsing session and never came back.
If I try to power on, the fan would spin but nothing else except that the LED light would go red, indicating some sort of failure.

I contacted ACEPC after-sales, and got an initial reply asking me to provide my order details from about 18 months ago, which I did immediately.
Unfortunately, that was it. No follow-ups.

So I decided to try fix it myself.

This seems to be a common issue among the entire product lineup, not just my T5. And the general fix seems to be to unplug the CMOS battery, which I thought the T5 didn't have. I was wrong. After seeing teardown videos of similar products from other companies, (but ironically those products are also called T5), I figured the T5 does indeed have a CMOS battery in it.

So I did a quick teardown with some tools that I have. Once I spudged the lid off, the disassembly was rather easy. Just one screw holding the motherboard in place. And voila, there it was, a tiny CMOS battery on the underside of the board. But unlike desktop computers, the battery was soldered to the contacts. Easy. Just ripped the contacts off.

The the reassembly. One screw, and pop the lid back on.

Hook it up to my monitor, connect the power...

And it's back as usual!

[vrsimon]

I lately experience the same thing, with different cause though: I tried to change BIOS boot OS to android, then nothing showed up on reboot. Teardown was my last resort as I don't want to spend hours or months contacting after sale service. But unlike other models I seen, this one battery is glued. If you want to remove, need to unsolder it. I don't have experience with soldering, afraid i might just make it worse. I just used a screwdriver to touch the battery and the parts that hook it up for a while, then power it back on, it boots up. That's my experience.

Have you soldered the battery back on? A PC without CMOS battery might run into various issues. I experience myself.

[Gabe]

A PC without CMOS battery might run into various issues. I experience myself.

Very much so. This is especially the case if a unit relies on non default BIOS settings, as most units without a CMOS battery will revert to their default settings.

The system clock will also likely not save.

Not all PCs will be negatively affected, BIOS wise, but many will.

[Yjchoi17]

My unit never had the clock right. That’s why i thought it didn’t have a CMOS battery. I’ve been using a little piece of software that syncs the time on boot up. (The built in function doesn’t work if the time offset is over 16 hrs) I guess the battery was dead since day 1.

But somehow, it does save the bios settings (most importantly, auto power on after failure) so I’m good with that.

In short, I didn’t reinstall the battery. And it isn’t causing any issues.

[vrsimon]

@Gabe, Agree, I have never seen one that don't though.

@ Yjchoi17, this is weird, CMOS battery should have lasted much longer than that, unless you leave the device unused for long. Maybe it's defect or dying even before that.

[yjchoi17]

@vrsimon, Yeah, now that I know there is (was) a CMOS battery in the stick, it would've been better if it worked when I first got it. But like I said, there are no issues with the battery removed other than the clock not working, which I have managed to work around.

[dazzles]

Thank you @yjchoi17 Life saver!