Grrr.... So after having swapped out the hard drive w/ 9.1 on it
earlier this week and replacing it with the 8.6 hard drive, my 5300ce
developed the Green Light of Death syndrome. I did everything that
was suggested in the 190 thread from last week, but nothing helped.
At first i thought I had jostled the RAM out of it's socket while
doing the swap (I'm notorious for not following the steps in the
service manual... heh), so I pulled the RAM. GLOD. Put the RAM back
in firmly. GLOD. I thought that maybe the PRAM battery was
depleted, so I left it plugged in for a day. GLOD. I thought that
maybe the PRAM battery was dead, so I pulled it and tested it with my
volt meter. No reading.
AH HA! I thought.
So today I went to Batteries Plus and bought 4 new batteries* (2 each
for my 5300 books) to replace the older factory PRAM batteries. I
installed the new battery assembly. GLOD.
Curious, I pulled the battery back out and tested it with my volt
meter. No reading. *sigh* Not wanting to go back to the store and
complain just yet, I decided to check a known good AA battery - no
reading! I took apart the volt meter and looked at the fuse. It
looked fine, so I replaced the internal battery with a known good
one. Still no readings. Finally, I decided to jumper the fuse. AH
HA! 1.5V on the AA battery.
Testing the PRAM assembly gave 3V for both cells (6V total) which is
just right.
I put everything back together with the new battery. GLOD.
Finally, I decided to tear down the 'book and put it back together
piece-by-piece, just to make sure that nothing was dislodged.
Go figure, my Focus video/ethernet card in the PDS slot was loose. I
pulled the card and put everything back together. It booted! YAY!
The post that receives the screw which holds the PDS card in place is
broken on my 5300's case. Basically, all that holds PDS cards in
place is friction in the connector. Usually, that's enough (you can
guess this has happened before) - though sometimes the card comes
loose with use from plugging and unplugging the dongle on the back.
I have no idea how it came loose this time (I haven't used it since I
installed it last) and it's well protected from contact when
accessing the hard drive, but loose it came.
So after I had narrowed down the cause of the GLOD, I wondered if my
old PRAM battery were truly dead or not. Retesting found that I was
getting a nominal 6V from the old battery... It wasn't dead after
all!
I tested the battery from my 5300cs and got 5V. Which brings up my
only real question in this post:
Just how dead does a PRAM battery have to be to not boot a 5300?
One of the cells was good at 3V, the other was only 2V. I haven't
bothered assembling my 5300cs to test the new battery yet, as I still
haven't gotten a new display for it. But I do remember that using
this old 5V (not that I knew at the time) PRAM battery to boot my
5300ce never worked - I could never get it to start with this PRAM
battery (swapping it with the old 6V version always did the trick).
Well, let this rather long-winded anecdote be a lesson: Always check
your connections before spending money uselessly! Although I'm only
out $15, who knows what it could cost next time....
Peace,
Drew
* for the battery specs and info, read my other post "5300/190 PRAM batteries"
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