cjs
Veteran Member
I have a NEC PC-9801NV "notebook" (rather larger and heavier than what we'd call a notebook today) released 1990-11, that is having difficulty powering up. I doubt anybody here has experience with these specific machines (or any NEC PC-98 notebooks), but I'm hoping that people will have generic advice that can help me out as the PC-9801NV seems to be using Intel-ish hardware typical of the era.
The seller described it as powering up to the point where it gave a beep and then powering down again. The first couple of times I powered it up it actually came up to a BASIC prompt, but after that it seems to have reverted to the behaviour the seller described. The power light comes on, after a second or two it emits a beep, and then immediately shuts down.
I don't have the original PSU for it, but it says on the label that it wants 14 VDC through the standard 5.5/2.5 mm barrel connector, and I've been using a variable-voltage external power brick for this. (I confirmed via continuity tests that the connector is centre-negative.)
It also has two batteries installed, which are 9.8 VDC 1400 mAh NiCD, both of which seem quite dead; I get the same results with or without either or both batteries installed. I did try supplying 9-11 V from the PSU on the main battery connectors, but with that it doesn't power up at all.
Besides those two batteries, it has internally a 6V 150 mAh battery pack connected to the board via a header, which I believe is the backup power for the RAM drive. It has 5 cells of about the diameter and half the length of an AA cell. There's also a button-type battery, a VL2320, which is apparently a 3 V 30 mA LiV205 rechargeable cell; that's welded to the motherboard.
Does anybody have any suggestions as to how I should be debugging the problem?
The seller described it as powering up to the point where it gave a beep and then powering down again. The first couple of times I powered it up it actually came up to a BASIC prompt, but after that it seems to have reverted to the behaviour the seller described. The power light comes on, after a second or two it emits a beep, and then immediately shuts down.
I don't have the original PSU for it, but it says on the label that it wants 14 VDC through the standard 5.5/2.5 mm barrel connector, and I've been using a variable-voltage external power brick for this. (I confirmed via continuity tests that the connector is centre-negative.)
It also has two batteries installed, which are 9.8 VDC 1400 mAh NiCD, both of which seem quite dead; I get the same results with or without either or both batteries installed. I did try supplying 9-11 V from the PSU on the main battery connectors, but with that it doesn't power up at all.
Besides those two batteries, it has internally a 6V 150 mAh battery pack connected to the board via a header, which I believe is the backup power for the RAM drive. It has 5 cells of about the diameter and half the length of an AA cell. There's also a button-type battery, a VL2320, which is apparently a 3 V 30 mA LiV205 rechargeable cell; that's welded to the motherboard.
Does anybody have any suggestions as to how I should be debugging the problem?
