[rescue] Multia Question

Al Potter apotter at spankingnuns.com
Tue Feb 18 18:31:02 CST 2003


frank.vandamme at student.kuleuven.ac.be said:
> Well designed? Except for one thing at least. As I learned from this
> list,  there is something called nvram, a part attached to the main
> board, with a  battery inside it - battery empty means you can't boot
> the box anymore and  your mac adress gets reset and more evil things

First, it takes around 8-10 years for the battery to die.

Then, is is only an issue if you have to reboot.  The box will happily run 
forever with a dead battery if it booted "cool".

Finally, a "dead battery" only means the box won't boot automagically.  You 
are free to set the appropriate values, and then boot the box manually, 
where it will happily run for the next hundred years or so (assuming a 
stable OS), or until the power fails again.


Not a bad deal, as far as I can tell....  for ten year old hardware.



AL


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