Greetings; I've found a 540c and like it a lot! I've done a few days of web searching but have some questions/issues left.
It needs a new floppy drive, one is coming from ebay, anything I could mess up on installing it would be good to know about in advance. I've found some take-apart info on the web. Should be easy. I finally found the hinge repair instructions that used to be on O'Grady's but now are dead links everywhere- they were still archived at www.archive.org, a neat site if you know the URL you want. So I'll be making sure those hinges are tightened. Were there photos originally? archive.org doesn't save graphics IIRC. One battery is just about perfect, one battery is dead, even despite EMMPathy 2.0 (I never could find 2.1.1)- the battery rebuilding instructions at <http://www.wwc.edu/~frohro/520_Fixes/520_&_540.htm> are great, but circa 1999; what would be suggested for model #'s and capacities of batterys to use for refurbishing that are available at this time? He suggests Panasonic HHR-210A, or Sanyo HR-A cells. Basically any high capacity NiMH or NiCD AAs ? (whichever these are designed for, I've not checked Applespecs and lowendmac doesn't specify which is in the packs). What's the best OS to use on these? Is there a reason to go to 8.1 (it's 7.6.1 now). 12 meg onboard plus RAMdoubler is all... .sigh. The biggest issue- I've not been able to make it talk to an external SCSI CD drive. OS on the 540c is 7.6.1. I have the 29-pin powerbook SCSI adapter with the male and female DB25 connections, and 2 different models of external SCSI drives: an Apple 600e, and a non-Apple RW drive. The RW drive might need special drivers, might not, with 7.6.1. The 540c has FWB CD toolkit 3.0 installed. I hook up the Apple 600e external drive (running another (known good) cable between the laptop adapter and the CD drive)), terminate it with a Centronics50 terminator (one with the red light on the terminator), the laptop won't boot. External ID 5, internal HD is 0. I turn everything off, remove the terminator, CPU boots, FWB sees the 600e on a bus scan. However, the Mac never notices if I insert a CD. doesn't even spin it up. Same behaviour with the RW drive. Both drives worked fine on my 6400, hooked up as the only external device, terminated with the same connector (under OS 8.6 or 9.1). Do I need to do something special with inline terminators for the powerbook? I believe I would for SCSI disk mode, but for this I thought not. The Apple drive should provide SCSI termination power (they all do, right) and the terminators with the light are also terminators that provide power if the drive doesn't (IIRC). I have a ton of Cent50 inline terminators and gender changers, but no DB25 ones. Whether the RW drive works or not with 7.6.1, I'd decide once I got the 600e working. I don't understand why this isn't working, I use a lot of SCSI periphs and never have had an issue yet. Although I've never had a powerbook before. I looked at the archives searching for SCSI but it would not let me go back more than a couple of months (that I could figure out). Thanks for thoughts on any of the above! This is a pretty cute little laptop. I want to refurb the other battery and use the laptop, due to the extended battery life the 2 batteries provides. My wife and I work in the field a bit (biologists) and this looks like a great little laptop for that- useful and pretty sturdy but not expensive enough to cause hardship if an accident occurs... Thanks, Brian -- -- PowerBooks is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Enter To Win A | -- Canon PowerShot Digital Cameras start at $299 | Free iBook! | RoadTools $30 PodiumPad available at Apple retail stores, $20 Traveler CoolPad at Staples. Both in white for iBooks at <http://roadtools.com>. Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> PowerBooks list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/powerbooks.shtml> Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/powerbooks%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
