Packard Bell Legend 125

[bduff509]

My son has a PB that the battery went bad in. I couldn't find an exact replacement so I put a phone 3.6v NiCd in it's place. Since then when I try to start it I get a "start up failure" and can get past it. Anybody have any suggestions? Please don't say to trash it. It may deserve it but I can't afford another one.

[GaryRouth]

Yep, it does need an exact replacement. Probably $1.50 at your local computer store or Radio Shack. If you have a Fry's Electronics in your town, they'll have it (I think the store here in Woodland hills has every battery for every device ever made).
If you put the correct battery in and get the same message, leave us another post here at the forum. [As you know, extra voltage doesn't do well on motherboards - even a static charge can damage them]

It's worth $1.50 to see if the right battery puts things OK.
Best of luck
. . . Gary

[toomyg]

I might be guessing at this but the startup failer might be be because the bios might have gotten erased I had this happen on an old win 3.11 Packerd Bell I had,

I had to take it apart and read the specs off the side of the HD it self to get it to work again

But before straying this I'd take Garys advise first before doing anything else

[GaryRouth]

toomyg brings up a good point: after you replace a motherboard battery, it's a good idea to enter Bios Setup (by pressing the key mentioned on your startup banner "Press F1 (or Del or F10 etc) to Enter Setup" and make sure to update the settings = you can have the Bios redetect hardware with by setting the "Update ESCD?" option, and if you'd like the Bios to do the rest of the work too, you can choose "Save Defaults and Exit" - that will let the bios load default values for the hardware it finds. You can tune for performance later (especially if you can come up with a manual for the motherboard).

By the way, when you set "Update ESCD" to "Enabled" - it affects only the next bootup, and resets itself to Disabled after it runs (you don't have to go back in & turn it off).

Hope the new battery does the trick
. . . Gary

[if the Packard Bell is pre-Win95, it might not be able to auto-detect hard drives ---> and you'll have to follow toomyg's advice: copy the drive type, heads, cylinders, sectors, etc info from the sticker on the hard drive. ]