I got a broken Duo280c from a friend a few years ago, and was finally able to get it out of storage to play with it. Poor guy broke off two of the battery contacts in the bay and somebody wanted to charge him about $500 to fix it! So he bought a different machine and shelved the Duo for years, until he learned that I was a tinkering "mac person".
My other PowerBooks are 1400s. I was under the impression that almost all PowerBooks used the same power supplies, since the connectors and electrical requirements seem similar, if not the same. I have tried two of the PSUs which I know to work but they won't start the Duo. Are the Duo AC adaptors different than more recent ones? I am thinking about picking up a cheap Duo PSU, but I am unemployed and broke so I want to make certain that this is the issue, otherwise I'll use the money for something else. The Duo supposedly works apart from the battery problem, but I don't know if there might be other issues. There appears to be CPU (of course), RAM, and HD, so I expected it would work.
Any ideas?
M
Your 1400's PS should fire up the Duo, assuming the Duo works. But . . . sounds like your Duo may have other problems.
However . . . try leaving the PS plugged into the 'Book for a couple of days to charge the PRAM battery. Also, try resetting the power manager, which IIRC on Duos requires holding the reset button (on the back) for 15 or 20 seconds.
dan k
I will try leaving it plugged in. I have heard that some macs will not start at all without working PRAM batteries, but I have never experienced this before. Just need to find a place to leave it connected where it'll be left alone. Most outlets in this place are connected to the light switches, which gets silly.
I did try the reset button at first. I hope trickling the PRAM works.
Thanks again Dan for your insight!
M