[ On Monday, November 8, 2004 at 20:19:47 (+0100), bart sikkes wrote: ]
> Subject: somewhat ot: looking dec multia help
>
> what would the wise thing to do now, just try a new battery? (i have
> seen remarks on old part numbers and such, but living in the
> netherlands we dont have a radioshack, is it ok to just use some 4.5
> volt battery or are there other things to pay attention to?)

Yes, you definitely need a new battery first.

The old, original, battery which I removed from one of my multias and
which was still sitting at the back of my workbench is a plain little
cube-shaped Rayovac "computer clock battery" model # 840.  It's a basic
4.5 volt alkaline cell, 800 mAh according to the NetBSD "multiafaq.html"
but others say 500 mAh is more than sufficient.

The old "dead" battery still reads 4 volts even after at least five
years sitting idle, which of course means that the clock & NVRAM in the
multia need nearly the full 4.5 volts to function and maybe they'd even
be happier with a full 5.0 volts -- not sure what the chip is any more.

The replacement (which I did find at RadioShack, IIRC) still works fine
too -- I netbooted the machine a couple of weeks ago, but it has been
turned off for the vast majority of those five years....

While you've got it open don't forget to heat-sink that little 74F623
chip on the bottom (location E215, IIRC)!

-- 
						Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098                  VE3TCP            RoboHack <woods@robohack.ca>
Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>          Secrets of the Weird <woods@weird.com>