LC just died

[naryasece]

After months and months of waiting, I broke down and bought an LC off craigslist. It is the original LC. When I checked it out, i heard the startup chime, but the seller didn't have a monitor to show me it worked. I brought it home and plugged in my Macintosh Color Monitor and it booted up to the System 7 Desktop. I forgot my keyboard and mouse at my other place, so I had to do a hard shutdown :O

When I returned with my keyboard and mouse, the LC did not give me any startup tune, nor did it give me a grey screen (ie its black). I cant seem to figure out what happened to the machine that would make it fail to work...

I know the PRAM battery is dead, but I dont see why it can't boot without the battery. I tried hobbling together a replacement out of 3x1.2v NiMH batteries donated by my Newton 2100. This did not seem to help.

It appears to have an 80mb hard disk (that I unplugged to prevent damage from repeatedly powering the LC on an off) I am guessing 4 mb ram total, the Vram upgrade and nothing in the PDS slot.

It does check the floppy when it powers on, and periodically reads the hard disk (when the disk's power is plugged in).

I am still at a loss as to why the machine fails the power on test, when it worked earlier in the day. Does anyone have a suggestions for necessitating my new LC? :?:

Thanks.

 

[LCGuy]

The LCs need a good PRAM battery to boot. Try turning the machine on, then off again, and then quickly on a second later.

If that doesn't make it work, its more serious than that. Try reseating all the connections, or powering it up in a "barebones" config.

Best of luck.

 

[QuadSix50]

The LCs need a good PRAM battery to boot. Try turning the machine on, then off again, and then quickly on a second later.
If that doesn't make it work, its more serious than that. Try reseating all the connections, or powering it up in a "barebones" config.

Best of luck.

With the LCII I have been working on to give to someone, I had to leave it plugged in for a while and then it would finally work for me. I'm going to be doing some more work on it now that I've picked up my old IBM B&W monitor from work.

 

[naryasece]

The LCs need a good PRAM battery to boot. Try turning the machine on, then off again, and then quickly on a second later.

thanks for the tip. I tried powering the LC on, then off, and then turning it on quickly again. It did not seem to help. LCGuy, do you know if the motherboard needs 3.6 volts applied to the motherboard to boot? Would the LC boot with out a PRAM battery?

The local RadioShack sells a replacement battery for $22. its a little steep for me, considering I bought the LC for $25. I just want to be sure that the PRAM battery will fix the problem before I plunge more money into it.

If that doesn't make it work, its more serious than that. Try reseating all the connections, or powering it up in a "barebones" config.

I think I will try the "barebones" setup and see if it will boot with that. I made a system 6.08 boot disk for use in the floppy drive.

With the LCII I have been working on to give to someone, I had to leave it plugged in for a while and then it would finally work for me.

QuadSix50 (or anyone), does the machine have to be powered on to charge the battery? Or will it recharge if I just leave it plugged into the wall?

Thanks everyone for the tips/suggestions. I'll give it a try and let you know.

 

[porter]

The local RadioShack sells a replacement battery for $22. its a little steep for me, considering I bought the LC for $25. I just want to be sure that the PRAM battery will fix the problem before I plunge more money into it.

If it doesn't, you then have a spare battery for all those other Macs....

Both my LCII and PowerPC6100 need the double click on the power a couple of seconds after initial power on to burst them into life. Again, dead battery syndrome.

 

[naryasece]

If it doesn't, you then have a spare battery for all those other Macs....
Both my LCII and PowerPC6100 need the double click on the power a couple of seconds after initial power on to burst them into life. Again, dead battery syndrome.

You make an excellent point. That same PRAM battery would be great for my Classic II. Thanks!

 

[MrMacintosh]

You can get them online shipped for less than $22 from RadioShack.

I have never owned an original LC, but for the record, my LC III will boot with no PRAM battery or a flat one. My LC 475 requires a good PRAM battery or the toggle-trick.

 

[register]

An inexpensive battery replacement for the LC series is a set of two AA or AAA 1.5 Volt alkaline batteries, connected to produce around 3 Volt output voltage. The batteries could be mounted in a little battery holder, as available from Radio Shack. Wire the holder terminals to the battery connector on the mainboard (mind the polarity!) and fixate the holder in a place for convenient access, like the space around the speaker (use some adhesive mounting tape). Make sure not to block the fan with the additional wiring. This works very well in any of my LC475s.

If you make a connecting clip in the size of the original lithium cell, you can connect the new battery without any modification to the mainboard, leaving the mac in original condition.

P.S.: prefer to use "leak proof" batteries.

 

[jroger]

Hello,

You can start your LC without battery.

In this case you just need to reset the PRAM on every cold start, using the 'classic' Alt+Command+P+R Keystroke

Yes, I know

 

[Scott Baret]

The LC 475 needs a good PRAM battery to start but the older ones don't.

 

[jroger]

I can assure you that I started my 6 LC 475 yesterday to (check their hard drives), without batteries using the PRAM keystroke.

When I need battery I just sold two standard "AAA" batteries together, then to the motherboard. It's not pretty to look at but it works.

I do that only for the machines that I really use, otherwise I fear theses batteries would spill and destroy the motherboard when getting old.