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- Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
- Path: sparky!uunet!stanford.edu!CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU!Xenon.Stanford.EDU!torrie
- From: torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie)
- Subject: Re: Duo 230 lack-of-power-Book ...
- Message-ID: <torrie.722404514@Xenon.Stanford.EDU>
- Originator: torrie@Xenon.Stanford.EDU
- Sender: news@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU
- Organization: CS Department, Stanford University, California, USA
- References: <14NOV199220432540@oregon.uoregon.edu> <1e87teINNg7l@rave.larc.nasa.gov> <lgnvfsINNi9o@lion.cs.utexas.edu> <1992Nov20.052339.16027@leland.Stanford.EDU>
- Date: 22 Nov 92 03:55:14 GMT
- Lines: 80
-
- morgan@leland.Stanford.EDU (RL "Bob" Morgan) writes:
-
- >So there I am bloating with pride as I go to the Stanford Bookstore to
- >pick up my new PowerBook Duo 230 which will change my life.
- >And there I am, getting more and
- >more puzzled and worried as I keep pushing the Power button and
- >nothing happens.
-
- Well, I picked up my PowerBook Duo 210 from the Stanford Bookstore
- just over a week ago. I got it home, pulled it out of the box, tried
- pressing the Power key, and nothing happened. Having been used
- to a Powerbook 100 and 140 which both started up out of the box,
- I was a bit worried.
- So I read the manual, and it says "plug it in before starting it".
- So I plug in the adapter, press the Power key, and it works OK. I decide
- to play around a bit more with the neat features, so I take out
- the battery while it's asleep, put it back in (* - see later) etc.
-
- Then, I unplug the adapter, and try and start up the Duo. No luck.
- No response from the Power key at all. I plug it back in, and it
- comes up. I put it to sleep, unplug it, and try and start it up from sleep
- with a keypress. No response. At this point, I was mildly worried,
- especially since I'd never seen anything like this on my 100 and 140.
- * Then, I noticed something. The front left of the case, (i.e the
- front of the battery) was ever so slightly jutting out further from the
- base of the trackball button than the right hand side. I could turn
- the machine upside down, twirl it around, and the battery wouldn't come
- out, but it wasn't FULLY latched. I pulled out the battery again, and
- this time slid it in, making sure that it was exactly flush (this
- requires pushing towards the back as you slide the battery to the
- right).
- I tried waking the machine up from sleep, and this time it worked
- fine.
-
- I took the Duo away with me the following weekend, and once again,
- I had this problem where it wouldn't respond to the Power on key.
- I checked, and yes, the battery which I'd been showing to people,
- wasn't completely latched. I put it back in, and I haven't had
- a single problem since.
-
- >When I get home it has a little trouble powering up again, but then
- >it's OK. I plug in the power adapter and do some work. Imagine my
- >chagrin when the "Battery is low. Plug in power adapter now!" message
- >comes on the screen. I shut down, fiddle with the power cord, move it
- >to a socket that I'm sure is working. Now the Mac doesn't start up
- >from the Power button, but does when I wiggle the power cord. I'm
- >beginning to get the picture, and it isn't pretty. Eventually the Mac
- >gives up the ghost when the battery runs down completely.
-
- I'm not sure if you have exactly the same problem, but it wouldn't
- surprise me. Did you play around with the battery when you were showing
- its features?
- My guess is that in some cases
- 1. Out of the box, the Duo battery isn't charged, and the machine won't
- start up without being plugged in and recharged.
- 2. The battery can appear to be latched, even though it isn't, and when
- this happens, no power is being supplied from the battery, so the
- machine will appear to be dead until plugged in.
- 3. It's possible that with a mislatched battery, it thinks power is
- coming from the battery, and even when you plug in the power adapter,
- the response to the Power On key etc is fickle.
-
- >Today the shipping guy arrives with a special shipping box designed to
- >take a PowerBook DuoCorpse and its PowerLess adapter. I comment that
- >they must have quite a few of these if they have gone to the trouble
- >of making special packaging. He says "more than you want to know."
- >So my next question to the masses is: Have others had this sort of
- >problem with Duos? Are their failure rates known to be high?
-
- I'd be interested in what the Repair Centre's assessment is, but
- in my case, it all seemed to be a case of operator error (combined with
- a dubious battery latching mechanism).
-
- Evan.
- --
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Evan Torrie. Stanford University, Class of 199? torrie@cs.stanford.edu
- Embrace rationalism, reject superstition. Break away from the past.
- "...there is only one thing worse than having marketing people on a project,
- and that is having no marketing people on a project." - Larry Tesler.
-