>It can be helpful for the older (type II, Ni-Cad) batteries, Type III
>batteries (Ni-MH) don't have a 'memory effect', so battery reconditioning
>does nothing for them. Apple's official word on that was "it can't
>hurt", so they left it in as an option. My experience is it can hurt. I
>had a working 280c, fresh off Ebay, but the battery was dead. I saw the
>battery conditioning program and thought, 'woo-hoo maybe I can save this
>battery.' and ran it. Upon trying to awake the duo, very bad news. I
>get the chime and happy mac,then the hard drive spins up, makes a little
>noise, spins down, over and over. So either the hard drive failed
>coincidentally with the battery reconditioning, or battery reconditioning
>killed it. If you have type III or type IV batteries, I wouldn't
>recommend it. Even with type II batteries, letting the battery fully
>discharge is the same thing as reconditioning.
I'm not sure where this notion comes from, but all Duo batteries (Type I,
II, or III as well as the BTI "Type IV") are NiMH - there's no
technological difference between them besides the different charge
capacity. All NiMH batteries do develop a "memory effect", though it's not
quite as bad as in NiCads. I've observed it firsthand (and corrected it
with Battery Reconditioning). Finally, just letting the battery fully
discharge *isn't* the same thing as running Apple's Battery Reconditioning
app (and neither is Jeremy Kezer's Battery Amnesia - it's a neat little
application, but it can't discharge even close to as deeply as Battery
Reconditioning can). Do recondition all of your Duo batteries occasionally.
And no, it can't kill your hard drive, though it can put the final nail in
the coffin of a battery that's beyond redemption (seen that too - a good
thing actually, since you know then to give up on that battery). It may be
marginally possible that a really damaged battery could send an excessive
voltage through the Duo at startup time, however - I have seen one case
where a Type II battery damaged by a poorly-built external reconditioner
caused the chimes of death when I tried to start a Duo with it (but it
didn't damage the Duo, and it started up fine once the battery was removed).
>As far as your software problem, try a fresh install of the
>reconditioning software. Zap your pram and rebuild your desktop. Try
>running it with a minimum extension set, if it runs then you know you
>have an extension conflict. As a last resort re-install your system
>software.
The problem is actually an incompatibility with later versions of Battery
Recondition; it will occur in that Duo regardless of the OS version. The
original poster should get the version of the app (1.2) that comes with
System 7.5[.x], or the slightly friendlier version 1.1 on the Battery Tools
2.0 disk:
http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English
-North_American/Macintosh/PowerBook/Other_PB_SW/Battery_Tools_2.0.sea.bin
--
Marc Sira | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"If you can't play with words, what good are they?"
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