On Mar 29, 10:07 pm, "J. Alexander Jacocks" <[email protected]> wrote: > Thanks for everyone who responded, and so quickly! The problem was, > indeed, the PRAM battery. My newer Macs haven't had such issues, when > their batteries died, so I had never considered the possibility.
Very few other Macs have this issue with the PRAM battery. The 6100 is the only one that comes to mind. There are a few other models (IIfx, e.g.) which simply won't power up without a good PRAM battery, but they don't give bizarre no video symptoms. Back in the 90s when this machine had been out about a year or so, there was a huge epidemic of flat PRAM batteries. Apple must have stuffed them with the oldest batteries that weren't expired or had a bad batch, or something. Additionally, the machine was selling for less than $1000 (around $700 some places, IIRC) which was unheard of for a Mac, and the Q605 is a darned quick little machine for that year, even if it's expandability was limited. Anyway, lots of people had them, and lots of batteries were failing. There was at least one outfit in comp.sys.mac.* selling replacement motherboards with trade-in for $150. Which was cheap compared to a replacement machine, but, while not fraud, certainly rude, compared to the actual "repair" needed. The beauty of buying and selling in the news groups, is that those of us in the know could post follow-ups to this outfit's for-sale messages suggesting that would-be victims first replace the PRAM battery. Jeff Walther -- ----- You received this message because you are a member of the Vintage Macs group. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/vintagemacs.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To leave this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/vintage-macs Support for older Macs: http://lowendmac.com/services/ To unsubscribe from this group, send email to vintage-macs+unsubscribegooglegroups.com or reply to this email with the words "REMOVE ME" as the subject.
