dsc-p12 no power

ASAAR wrote:
>
> On Sat, 8 Dec 2007 05:51:59 -0800 (PST), nwtdigitalcameras wrote:
>
> > I have a dsc-p12 which has always worked great. Recently I recharged
> > the battery and the spare but after insertion the camera will not
> > switch on. I get no power at all. I have pressed the reset button but
> > still nothing happens. Any clues? Thanks
>
> Just a long shot. Does the p12 use a removeable button cell to
> retain some memory and keep the clock running when the main
> batteries are removed or dead? Some (not very many, actually)
> electronic devices will appear totally dead if the backup battery is
> dead or missing. Also, in case the charger is defective and seems
> to be charging but actually isn't, do you have another charger to
> try? If your P12 uses NiMH AA batteries (instead of Li-Ion), you
> can try using a pair of fresh alkaline or lithium AA cells instead.


Hello, ASAAR:

On a related topic, I have an old Texas Instruments notebook computer
(Extensa 515), that appears to be completely dead. I hadn't used it, at
all, for several years; now, it does absolutely nothing, either on
battery or AC power.

Do you think the button cell (for the BIOS) could be the culprit? (Even
if it is, I can't determine how to access the damned thing!)

Thanks, for any advice.


Cordially,
John Turco <jtur DeleteThis @concentric.net>
 >> Stay informed about: dsc-p12 no power 

On Tue, 11 Dec 2007 08:33:47 -0600, John Turco wrote:

> On a related topic, I have an old Texas Instruments notebook computer
> (Extensa 515), that appears to be completely dead. I hadn't used it, at
> all, for several years; now, it does absolutely nothing, either on
> battery or AC power.
>
> Do you think the button cell (for the BIOS) could be the culprit? (Even
> if it is, I can't determine how to access the damned thing!)

It's worth trying, but you'll have to open the case and look for
something. It's more likely to be a small NiCD battery that's
soldered onto the main circuit board and would need to be replaced.
It that's what it is, either NiCD or NiMH would work, but getting
something small enough to fit may be a problem. Maybe you could use
an AAA battery case velcro'd to the outside of the laptop, if you
don't mind looking at something resembling a little digital
colostomy bag. If I get around to it, I may have to deal with
that too for my old TI Travelmate 6160 which may have last been
powered up 5 or 6 years ago. With Win95 on it, I'm sure that it
still boots up faster than WinXP on my current desktop computer, if
it'll boot up at all.
 >> Stay informed about: dsc-p12 no power 

ASAAR wrote:
>
> On Tue, 11 Dec 2007 08:33:47 -0600, John Turco wrote:
>
> > On a related topic, I have an old Texas Instruments notebook computer
> > (Extensa 515), that appears to be completely dead. I hadn't used it, at
> > all, for several years; now, it does absolutely nothing, either on
> > battery or AC power.
> >
> > Do you think the button cell (for the BIOS) could be the culprit? (Even
> > if it is, I can't determine how to access the damned thing!)
>
> It's worth trying, but you'll have to open the case and look for
> something. It's more likely to be a small NiCD battery that's
> soldered onto the main circuit board and would need to be replaced.
> It that's what it is, either NiCD or NiMH would work, but getting
> something small enough to fit may be a problem. Maybe you could use
> an AAA battery case velcro'd to the outside of the laptop, if you
> don't mind looking at something resembling a little digital
> colostomy bag. If I get around to it, I may have to deal with
> that too for my old TI Travelmate 6160 which may have last been
> powered up 5 or 6 years ago. With Win95 on it, I'm sure that it
> still boots up faster than WinXP on my current desktop computer, if
> it'll boot up at all.


Hello, ASAAR:

Well, I'm hoping it uses something like the little CR2032 (3 volt
lithium cell), which both of my desktop systems' AT mainboards (Tyan
S1830S "Tsunami") contain; it's not soldered in, luckily.

As for disassembling the Extensa 515, itself, I didn't get too far in
my lone attempt. I tried prying the case apart, with an expired credit
card -- yet, quit, out of fear of causing damage to it.

My "Googling" hasn't revealed enough clues about cracking this baby
open, either. The TI is an ancient (circa 1995), Pentium 100MHz/8MB
RAM/810MB HDD/Win95 machine, handed down to me, by a relative. Puny
as it is, it's still somewhat better than my only other laptop PC, a
Toshiba T4400C (486 50MHz/32MB/210MB/Win3.1/DOS 6.2).

The 1992-vintage, T4400C was my very first eBay purchase (in March of
2002) and it took me three full years to get it running correctly. I
spent far too much time, effort and money toward that goal and also,
in upgrading the Toshiba's CPU and memory.

But, hey, it was a good learning experience...I learned not to do such
stupid things, anymore! :-J


Cordially,
John Turco <jtur.RemoveThis@concentric.net>
 >> Stay informed about: dsc-p12 no power 

Hi,

From the instructions there is a small battery. The instructions state
that the small battery will recharge after a charged battery is left
in the camera for 24 hrs. I have tried that with no luck. Are you
familiar with the small batteries? Could I remove it and replace it
with another? Thanks.

joe

On 9 Dec 2007, 05:22, ASAAR <cau... DeleteThis @22.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 8 Dec 2007 05:51:59 -0800 (PST), nwtdigitalcameras wrote:
> > I have a dsc-p12 which has always worked great. Recently I recharged
> > the battery and the spare but after insertion the camera will not
> > switch on. I get no power at all. I have pressed the reset button but
> > still nothing happens. Any clues? Thanks
>
>   Just a long shot.  Does the p12 use a removeable button cell to
> retain some memory and keep the clock running when the main
> batteries are removed or dead?  Some (not very many, actually)
> electronic devices will appear totally dead if the backup battery is
> dead or missing.  Also, in case the charger is defective and seems
> to be charging but actually isn't, do you have another charger to
> try?  If your P12 uses NiMH AA batteries (instead of Li-Ion), you
> can try using a pair of fresh alkaline or lithium AA cells instead.
 >> Stay informed about: dsc-p12 no power 

On Thu, 10 Jan 2008 03:40:07 -0800 (PST), nwtdigitalcameras wrote:

> From the instructions there is a small battery. The instructions state
> that the small battery will recharge after a charged battery is left
> in the camera for 24 hrs. I have tried that with no luck. Are you
> familiar with the small batteries? Could I remove it and replace it
> with another? Thanks.

I'm familiar with small batteries, but not with the dsc-P12. From
what you've said here, I'd think that the rechargeable battery is
soldered internally, and isn't designed to be user-replaceable. If
this is the case you'd probably have to send the camera back to be
repaired, as I think that if an attempt to replace an internal,
soldered battery was made, more than 99% of the cameras would be
further damaged by the owners. There's also a very slim chance that
the battery is good, but the camera's internal computer needs a
*real* reset. Reset buttons that are connected to a CPU's reset
line should work, but some devices don't operate that way, and use
the CPU to "poll" the reset line. I've had some devices (radios)
that *seemed* to recognize the reset button, but not enough to
eliminate all errors. The only thing that worked was to remove the
battery for a sufficiently long time. For the radios, this was on
the order of minutes to hours. For cameras, it may be much worse,
as I recall one manual (I think this was in a Sony manual that I
read several years ago) stated that if the camera's main battery was
removed, the internal battery would run down after about a month.
This would eventually allow the camera to reset, but that's an
inconveniently long time to wait.

If I was in your situation and thought that I'd need to use a
camera within a couple of months, I'd buy a new one, and then
instead of throwing the P12 away, I'd remove its battery for two
months. Then I'd charge the battery, and put it back in the camera
for at least several hours before trying to turn it back on. If it
works, I'd (you'd) now have two working cameras, with a decision to
make as to which one would be the primary, and which one would be
the backup camera. If you won't need to use the camera for
several months, try it. If it works, you won't need to buy another
camera. Good luck!
 >> Stay informed about: dsc-p12 no power