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Dell Latitude C610 - just how do I get this thing working?

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First post, by PcBytes

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As the title says, I have a Latitude C610 I bought this Sunday, complete with its original charger - neat.

However, I'm facing a simple issue - no media will boot. Be it floppy, CD, DVD.
Hard drives are flat out not even recognized - any HDD I install is basically non-existent in the BIOS, though it spins and seeks properly.

Any ideas what can I do, besides parting it out? I'm at a loss of options to try.

"Enter at your own peril, past the bolted door..."
Main PC: i5 3470, GB B75M-D3H, 16GB RAM, 2x1TB
98SE : P3 650, Soyo SY-6BA+IV, 384MB RAM, 80GB

Reply 1 of 8, by PD2JK

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How is the CMOS battery? Systems can do weird when they are drained.

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Reply 2 of 8, by PcBytes

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Come to think of it, I really didn't think about it - there isn't any connected, though I figure it relied on the main system battery (which surprisingly still holds a bit of charge) to keep CMOS.

EDIT: No dice getting a CMOS there... it's one of those funky 7.2v batteries.

"Enter at your own peril, past the bolted door..."
Main PC: i5 3470, GB B75M-D3H, 16GB RAM, 2x1TB
98SE : P3 650, Soyo SY-6BA+IV, 384MB RAM, 80GB

Reply 3 of 8, by Ydee

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How large HDD you try?

Reply 4 of 8, by PcBytes

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Ydee wrote on 2023-07-18, 11:31:

How large HDD you try?

Anything - 20, 40 and 60 as well. None get picked up. Heck, I even tried a 10GB drive.

"Enter at your own peril, past the bolted door..."
Main PC: i5 3470, GB B75M-D3H, 16GB RAM, 2x1TB
98SE : P3 650, Soyo SY-6BA+IV, 384MB RAM, 80GB

Reply 5 of 8, by chrismeyer6

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Did you check the bios battery voltage and see if it's still within spec? Have you tried reflashing or updating the bios?

Reply 6 of 8, by Ydee

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Weird, my works flawlessly with 80GB or 6,4GB - but I have higher models (c810 and 840). Have you latest BIOS in your (A16 seems)?

Reply 7 of 8, by PcBytes

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The BIOS battery is missing, and I'm not able to source a 7.2v one at the moment. I instead installed a standard CR2032 battery in its place (the original was 7.2v 20mAh for whatever reason...) that tested in spec (3v), harvested from a HP G62.

As for the BIOS, it has had the latest BIOS already installed before I got it. Boots with "BIOS Revision A16" (or something close to that, don't exactly remember how Dell writes it but I know A16 shows up.)

"Enter at your own peril, past the bolted door..."
Main PC: i5 3470, GB B75M-D3H, 16GB RAM, 2x1TB
98SE : P3 650, Soyo SY-6BA+IV, 384MB RAM, 80GB

Reply 8 of 8, by chrismeyer6

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It could just be weirdness from not having proper CMOS battery voltage. You can try 2 coin cells to get 6v that would be closer to the 7.2. I've have a ton of systems either completely play dead or just do the most random weird crap with a low or dead/mission bios battery.

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