Inserting Floppy Causes Roboot on PB 165

[jwse30]

I reassembled my Powerbook 165 after getting its screen recapped (Thanks again JRL!). I had to swap out the keyboard from another powerbook (160) and went ahead and put the larger 10M RAM card from that machine in there as well. Everything is great; it is booting to 7.5.x off the internal 240 meg hard drive, screen in good, I've got good sound, keyboard works, trackball is working (might need a bit of lube or cleaning though; it's a bit sticky)

I went to try to install something via floppy, and the as soon as the floppy got injected, it robooted. Tried it again with the same results. I don't recall this being an issue before, though I don't recall using the floppy before. I think I used a SyQuest drive to get the System software on that hard drive many years ago.

I have another floppy drive from the 160 I can swap out, but was wondering if there was anything else I should be looking at as well. I am trying to avoid assembling/ disassembling this machine too many more times if I can avoid it, and would like to take care of any possible problems the next time I open it up.

Thanks in advance,

J White

 

[techknight]

Its probably related to a power issue. inserting a floppy disk would kick up the motors on the disk drive which consume a bit of current. The current spike is causing the machine to reboot, its likely due to a bad AC adapter not sending a clean enough voltage in the machine to sustain the proper operating parameters of the machine itself. 

If you had a good charged battery (yea right unless you rebuild it) then that problem would likely not manifest itself. 

Long story short, Try a new 7.5V 2A power adapter. those old iHomes and other things use those, otherwise you need to recap the one you have. 

 

[jwse30]

I had actually considered the power supply being weak as an option. I dismissed it (perhaps wrongly) because it sounds like troubles I would have at work (as an industrial electrician), not at home. I believe I have another adapter; I shall give that a try next time I am down there.

Thanks,

J White

 

[jwse30]

We have a winner! Mr Knight called it. I tried my other power supply and the floppy mounted and ejected as it should. 

Thanks for the advice,

J White

 

[techknight]

Thats what I thought.