Portable woes.

[Anonymous Freak]

Last night, I decided to try recovering my Portable (Backlit.) Yes, the main battery is beyond hope, so I am using a high-power PowerBook 100-series brick.

My symptoms are that if I unplug all power (main battery and 9V,) for a few minutes, then reapply, I can get the system to play the 'good chime' and light up the display for about two seconds, then it shuts off. After that, I have to disconnect all power again to get it to have any response.

I have tried unplugging the modem, RAM expansion, and floppy drive. I would like to unplug the hard drive as well, but I can't remember how to dismantle it far enough to do that.

Any ideas, or at least a reminder on how to take it apart far enough to unplug the hard drive? (I know I've had it that far apart before, I just can't remember how to do it.)

 

[Osgeld]

if the main battery is so shot its shorted out you could be driving the supply into protection mode, same thing happens with my 386 laptop, with the battery in it will try to fire, then die, removing the battery it can run for as long as you want

 

[Anonymous Freak]

if the main battery is so shot its shorted out you could be driving the supply into protection mode, same thing happens with my 386 laptop, with the battery in it will try to fire, then die, removing the battery it can run for as long as you want

I should specify that it only even boots as much as it does with the main battery removed. If I leave it in, I get no response at all.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

if the main battery is so shot its shorted out you could be driving the supply into protection mode, same thing happens with my 386 laptop, with the battery in it will try to fire, then die, removing the battery it can run for as long as you want

I should specify that it only even boots as much as it does with the main battery removed. If I leave it in, I get no response at all.

Check the forums for links to the DevNotes/Service Manuals/User Manual PDFs. If they're not readily available online, PM an email addy so I can forward them. [] ]'> I think they're somewhere on the cards/keychains I brought with me or on HP_Mini somewhere. If not, I won't be able to post them to you for about 10 days, as I'm of to see the Rug Rat & my siblings in New England again . . .

. . . and this time I'm not even manic!!!!!!!!!!!!! YIPPEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [] ]'>

 

[shred]

Do you reset the power manager after plugging the Portable in (press the interrupt and reset buttons together)? After it's had all power removed, my backlit Portable always requires this before it will boot.

Do you hear the sound of the hard drive attempting to spin up? If so, does the display dim slightly at the same time, then turn off?

I've never had any luck running my Portable without a battery (even with one of the later dark gray coloured AC Adaptors). It really likes to have a functioning battery to give the hard drive a little extra 'kick" when it power sup. You could try unplugging the hard drive and see if the machine will then get as far as the flashing ? on screen. The batteries are not hard to re-pack with new cells.

[edit] and if you've had to remove the main battery, don't forget to put the battery cover back in to place. The cover closes a little switch - if you leave the cover off, the 9v battery will keep going flat.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Update: After storing it with both batteries removed for a couple days, I have gotten a little further:

So before, when I had all power unplugged for a few minutes, it would start to power up (screen on with standard checkerboard background, 'okay' tri-tone chime,) then power down. The hard drive would *NOT* power up.

Now, I had the screen power on, but with SimasiMac-like screen display (hrm, didn't do that before,) yet this time, the hard drive DID spin up. And it stayed on longer than the 2-3 second it had been going before.

When I pressed any button on the keyboard, the display changed slightly, but still no chime. The reset button caused it to power down then up, same symptoms. Then the hard drive spun down and up again while it was otherwise 'on'. Pressing various buttons, and the hard drive eventually spun down and stayed. I unplugged power. I realized that I had unplugged the floppy drive for diagnostics before, so I plugged it back in, but it went back to the original symptoms.

So now I'm going to try an external floppy.

edit: With an external floppy only, internal disconnected, I get the same symptoms as with the internal floppy connected. But this time, I happened to be holding down the programmer key, so I got a sad mac with a code; but the screen turned off to quickly for me to catch the code. Now I'm going to have to let it sit powerless for a few minutes before I try again.