Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!gatech!purdue!haven!mimsy!mojo!russotto
From: russotto@eng.umd.edu (Matthew T. Russotto)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Re: A Mac II crash...
Message-ID: <1991Jan4.043057.1072@eng.umd.edu>
Date: 4 Jan 91 04:30:57 GMT
References: <1991Jan2.160301.28198@king.mcs.drexel.edu>
Sender: news@eng.umd.edu (C-News)
Organization: College of Engineering, Maryversity of Uniland, College Park
Lines: 36

In article <1991Jan2.160301.28198@king.mcs.drexel.edu> dmagagno@king.mcs.drexel.edu (David Magagnosc) writes:

>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 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?

Don't know, but I've had it happen to me, and have concluded the same thing

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

Not that I know of-- I've seen lots of mac IIs with loose keyboard cables
fail. (the ones in the public labs have security devices which allow the cable
to be made loose but not removed....)


>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?

Shorting the ADB bus can damage the mac in such a way so that the keyboard and
mouse don't work (but the power key will start the mac).  Probably a loose
cable could cause this, but if it isn't immediately apparent, I wouldn't
worry about it.

--
Matthew T. Russotto	russotto@eng.umd.edu	russotto@wam.umd.edu
     .sig under construction, like the rest of this campus.