Battery drain points to hardware problem

Q. I have a Macintosh 630 CD that requires a battery every 18months. No service people can understand this. Is there anythingyou can tell me about this? Also, what is your opinion of the Epsonprinters for Macs?

A. Lithium batteries that back up your system's preferencessettings and keep the clock running should last at least five years.There must be a current drain on the battery to cause this - thatwould be a hardware fault. You need to find service people with moreexperience in this problem in order to fix it. Otherwise, just keepa supply of batteries on hand.

The Epson Stylus 600 and 800 are excellent, high-resolution,color inkjet printers that work with any Mac.

Q. I've updated my copy of the Norton AntiVirus twice, and thePECHIHV virus is not listed. I would think Norton would have a patchfor PECHIHV. Netscape says it will have a patch about ; Aug. 10 forthe e-mail virus. I have Netscape Communicator 4.0 and NortonAntiVirus 4.0, as well as Norton Utilities and Uninstall.

A. This virus goes by some other names that Norton may be using. My copy of McAfee Antivirus includes protection against this bug.

Q. I am trying to load a program in DOS. However, it won'tinstall because it says I need to install a mouse. My mouse worksfine in Windows.

A. The Windows driver for your mouse is not being loaded whenyou boot your machine in MS-DOS mode. You need to edit yourautoexec.bat file to include a pointer to the correct driver, withthe correct parameters supplied.

Q. I heard you recommend an Epson printer recently. Our CanonBJC-610 needs a new print head ($129), which is on back order. So,my husband is campaigning for a new printer. Which model is best?

A. As I noted above, the Epson Stylus 600 and 800 are excellent,and they produce higher quality copy than the Canon. Expect to pay$199 for the 600 and $249 for the 800. I'd also take a look atLexMark 5700, also at $249, which produces very crisp copy and is asnap to set up.

Q. I don't know which backup device to buy. I've seen IomegaZip, Jaz, and Ditto drives, and many others. The Ditto drive has a2GB capacity, with three cartridges costing about $40. Is a Dittodrive a good idea?

A. The Iomega Ditto drive is actually a tape drive and iswell-suited for computer backups, since the media is cheap andreliable. Another tape drive to look for is the Seagate TapeStor3200, which is priced similarly to the Iomega.

If you need an additional hard disc, as well as a backup drive,you should go with the Iomega 2GB Jaz drive (a removable hard drive)or the SyQuest SparQ drive (a removable 1GB hard drive), since theycan be used both as backup devices and as additional hard discs.

Don Crabb's column appears on the Connected page Sunday, Tuesdayand Thursday and in Homelife on Friday. He can be heard from 10 p.m.to 1 a.m. Saturday on WGN-AM (720). He appears at 7:45 a.m. Thursdayon WFLD-TV's "Fox Thing in the Morning." E-mail: don@doncrabb.com.