[X4U] PRAM Battery Research & Test

[David Ledger]

>From: Jon <jwarms at mac.com>
>I shut down the Pbook, removed the battery and unplugged the
>adaptor cable. And waited about an hour for that capacitor to
>discharge. Then I reconnected the power adaptor and
>pressed the start button.
>The PowerBook started normally, chimes and all. I got a
>message about an incorrect time, but while I was reading the
>message the clock reset to correct time.
>And the same results should be seen on any desktop Mac
>without a PRAM battery or with a dead one. In other words,
>no disaster, minor inconvenience. This was easiest to
>demonstrate on a portable, but through the years I've used
>desktops with dead batteries (Mac and dark side) with
>similar outcomes. After a while, it's a big PITA, but that's all.

May not be relevant, but a laptop 'knows' that it has a disc, and how 
to access it. A G5/Pro can have extra disc interface cards fitted and 
the built in ones don't have to have a drive attached. More 
information is needed to find a default boot drive. I'm just 
comparing with how non-PC systems work in general.

David


-- 
David Ledger - Freelance Unix Sysadmin in the UK.
HP-UX specialist of hpUG technical user group (www.hpug.org.uk)
david.ledger at ivdcs.co.uk
www.ivdcs.co.uk