A few weeks ago my wife started having problems with her Powerbook (aka my old Powerbook). The first sympton was that sometimes when she booted the date/time would be set to midnight on december 31, 1969. Since OSX is Unix, and Unix time starts on January 1, 1970, I knew that the problem was that the time was getting set to zero.
Why would that happen? It was pretty obvious that it was the BIOS battery. Except of course for the fact that there is no BIOS on a Mac. Still, there is a battery on the motherboard that keeps the clock running. Except of course that it is not called a motherboard on a Mac but rather a mainboard. Still, it was just a little damn battery.
This was a minor annoyance, but I had a pretty nice workaround. I taught Sabrina to open a command line whenever this happened and type:
sudo ntpdate time.nist.gov
This required me to add her user to the sudoers list, but it was a simple fix that made the problem pretty painless. At least until I could replace that little battery (whatever it was called).
A week or two later the Powerbook started refusing to charge. I didn’t really understand how the two could be related, but after searching around online I learned that they were. I also learned that the little battery on the mainboard on a Mac is referred to as a PRAM battery. Now I knew what the problem was and I knew what the solution was. All I needed was a little time and the Powerbook would be back to normal.
Even though there is a team of “geniuses” working at the Apple Store, I knew that if I took the Powerboook there it would have to be shipped off to be repaired. Luckily we have another, older Apple store called Mac Authority. It is a place with a fair amount of geek cred. I called them up and asked about purchasing a PRAM battery. I was told it was a special order item. A few das later I stopped by the original Mac Authority location and asked to order a PRAM battery. Much to my surprise I was told that it was “too difficult to install” and that they couldn’t sell it to me. I could however bring the laptop in and they could order the part and fix it for me (for an extra $100). No thanks. I am of the opinion that if I know what a PRAM battery is and that I am brave/dumb enough to be willing to crack open my Powerbook and do it myself, then I am probably knowledgeable enough to know the risks. Mac Authority lost alot of credibility with me that day.
Luckily for me I was able to order a PRAM battery online from The Powerbook Guy. I found some instructions online and it looked easy enough. The part arrived at my house a few days later.
As I looked over the instructions I realized that I was going to need a new Torx wrench to get the Powerbook open. I had a little time tonight and wanted to knock this out so I took off to CompUSA to buy a new toolkit for electronics. It is the kind of thing I would have gone to Javanco for, but they closed down years ago; CompUSA is the next best thing. Or at least, it used to be.
Apparently no one is capable of working on computers anymore. CompUSA didn’t have a single toolkit available. Hell, the only tool they sell at CompUSA is a crimp tool for making ethernet cables. I went across the street to Home Depot and pieced together a really sweet little set of tools for doing this sort of thing. It used to be hard to find small drivers for electronics at Home Depot but they have quite the selection now. When I stop to think of it, I kinda like the idea of Home Deopt being more geek friendly than Radio Shack or CompUSA (and lord knows Best Buy was never even in the running despite having a “geek squad”).
After I got home from Home Deopt I pulled out the Powerbook and gathered the tools and the new PRAM battery. I decided that I probably could remember the instructions well enough from glancing at them once earlier so I didn’t bother to pull them up again. I pulled out my new T6 Torx driver and got started. Five minutes later the PRAM battery was in and the Powerbook was charging. I ran ntpdate one last time to set the clock and the problem was solved. From now on I know that I should just order parts online and buy tools at Home Depot. There is no store for geeks in Nashville that I know of.
