Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!netnews.upenn.edu!king.mcs.drexel.edu!dmagagno
From: dmagagno@king.mcs.drexel.edu (David Magagnosc)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: A Mac II crash...
Message-ID: <1991Jan2.160301.28198@king.mcs.drexel.edu>
Date: 2 Jan 91 16:03:01 GMT
Organization: Drexel University, Dept. of Math. and Comp. Sci.
Lines: 33

I am posting this mainly for my peace of mind, since I _believe_
I know the answer...

Last night, my Mac II crashed and would not reboot.  It would not
even get to the point of displaying a Mac icon, happy or sad or
otherwise, but would just sit with an entirely gray screen.

I then (after some choice words and a bit of hopping around)
discovered that the keyboard cable was loose in its socket
(keyboard side).  After I put it completely back into place,
everything was fine.

I think I can see that a loose connection might cause communication
errors over the ADB bus which could hang or crash the boot sequence.

So...

1) is this explanation (last sentence) correct?

2) is this explanation complete?  That is, does this behavior
   indicate some other problem which only manifested itself in
   conjunction with the loose cable?

3) Might the attempts to boot with the loose cable cause 
   permanent damage to components, and if so, what sort of
   damage might that be and why?

Thanks in advance,

David Magagnosc
Dept. of Math and CS
Drexel University
dmagagno@mcs.drexel.edu