d8b Forum

One of the original Mackie d8b Forum members, but haven't been on forum for quite some time/years and for about the last three years (after a studio/building move) my desk has been wrapped up in plastic and in storage.

I haven't changed the CMOS battery for a couple of years and want to do so before it possibly leaks and ruins the CPU board.

Previously when changing the battery everything has been connected together, so after the change, I simply powered up and undertook the tedious task of re-doing the CMOS set-up.

What I want to know, is can I just connect a monitor, keyboard and mouse and not the desk itself to do this or am I likely to damage the power supply unit in some way. I do not want to have to un-warp the desk just to do this task.

If considered unsafe I will just remove the battery and when next going to use the desk, insert a new battery and do the system setting at that stage --- possibly the most logical choice !!!

Any advice greatly appreciated.

David G

I cant give you any guarantee, but I have booted the cpu-unit without the desk connected many times.
I dont se how doing so could damage anything, unless something was already seriously wrong.

If you just need to change the battery because you have fears of it leaking, then just change it, no need to even switch it on, you can set the BIOS at a later date with everything connected.

I "mis-used" one of my D8B CPU's for a while, to run Windows 98 and a few old ISA sound cards. I booted it into Windows plenty often, without having the desk/console connected at all. This was all on a secondary harddrive, though. The main Mackie OS drive was still in there at all times, and ready to boot (...I just had to sacrifice some functionality, since I needed the ISA slots occupied by some of the other original cards (...don't remember if I pulled the Network and/or MIDI cards or both).

Eventually, I removed those soundcards again, and that CPU unit went back to regular D8B duty. Everything worked fine (and still does so). .

I don't think you have to worry about booting the CPU unit without the desk/console connected.

However, you're not going to be able to do anything. It will boot to a point where it says something like "DSP Card not ready" and then you can't even move the mouse. So, all you can "verify", really, is just if the OS boots up to that point or not.

Also... sure - if you're worried that the battery leaks, by all means, replace it. But I must have worked on HUNDREDS of old computers over the years (..and the D8B computer is nothing but an old Win 98 era computer with some extra power supply components), and I have NEVER seen one of those batteries leak. So, I wouldn't be too worried about it.

Good luck, though!

Y-my-R, Phil.c,

Thanks for the information and as I probably didn't word my initial request correctly, Y-R you have basically indirectly answered the question, because without the use of the mouse or K/B then I can't put in the CMOS settings.

Phil, thanks for your info as well, I knew that I could change the battery with the power off it was just the CMOS setting I was concerned about. Also even though I have not been around for quite some time, it is great to see that some of the "original" members are still here and still using the "old girl". I have a project coming up for myself in a few months time and I will most probably take the desk out of the cupboard, set it up and give it an airing !!!!!

Thanks,

David G

D8b's that havn't been used for some time can have problems....they can be very temperamental!

Sorry... saw this late. I'm pretty busy lately.

Actually, the mouse and keyboard won't work after you FULLY boot into Mackie OS. They still work for the BIOS/CMOS, so you can absolutely re-do the BIOS/CMOS settings after replacing the battery, and without the desk connected.

The BIOS/CMOS (same thing) is basically where the information is stored, that tells your mainboard what it is, and what other chips and components there are on it, and how to interface with them. So, it's more of a low-level Operating System, that only exists to make the hardware aware of how it's supposed to work, etc. That stuff is burned onto a chip on the mainboard. But it allows some settings to it, and they need to be set to something specific, for the D8B to work properly.

So, the BIOS/CMOS is something you can even access without having a harddrive installed. It's completely separate from the Mackie OS. That the keyboard/mouse stop working when booting the Mackie OS from the harddrive is just, because the Mackie OS doesn't find everything it needs to operate (i.e. the console), so it "gives up" and doesn't even react to any mouse or keyboard input.

But the BIOS/CMOS itself doesn't care if the console is there. So the mouse and keyboard will still work at that point, and you can already replace the battery and re-do the BIOS settings, so the whole D8B system will work right out of the box, once you connect it all back up (...except for potential problems from sitting around, as Phil pointed out).

Anyway - sorry about the confusion with my answer earlier. I hope this makes it a bit clearer.

Again, good luck!