# Help with clock setting fail



## groovyclam (Feb 18, 2002)

I've had my TiVo powered down and in storage for 11 months and so now it wants to do a daily call.

It makes a test call ok, but on the real daily call it gets stuck at "setting clock..." 

A search on the forums suggests my clock battery may be dead. Before I open the beast up - where on the TiVo series 1 board is the battery, and is it a simple case of buying a new battery and clipping it in like on a PC ?


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

groovyclam said:


> I've had my TiVo powered down and in storage for 11 months and so now it wants to do a daily call.
> 
> It makes a test call ok, but on the real daily call it gets stuck at "setting clock..."
> 
> A search on the forums suggests my clock battery may be dead. Before I open the beast up - where on the TiVo series 1 board is the battery, and is it a simple case of buying a new battery and clipping it in like on a PC ?


The clock battery is the huge flat silver CR-2032 battery on the green motherboard in the white plastic holder. You can't miss it once you have the Tivo open and unlike the power supply it is very easy indeed to replace.

However the only purpose of the CR-2032 battery is to let the machine remember the time and date after a power down until it next dials in on the daily call and picks up the correct time and date. A failed battery does not (so far as I know) stop the Tivo then picking up the correct time and date when it next dials in. Its just that without a battery with some charge in it that it will lose the time and date when it is next switched off until it again dials in some time in the next 24 hour cycle.

When I took the battery out of my Tivo and restarted it a few months ago (in the course of replacing it) I found the Tivo started up with a date in 2008 (figure that out if you can) whereas I would have expected it to pick a date around the time the circuit board was designed in 1998 or 1999.

By all means replace the battery as they only cost a couple of quid at Maplins and a little more at the average Dixons or Currys.


----------



## Rob Nespor Bellis (Feb 17, 2001)

groovyclam said:


> I've had my TiVo powered down and in storage for 11 months and so now it wants to do a daily call.
> 
> It makes a test call ok, but on the real daily call it gets stuck at "setting clock..."
> 
> A search on the forums suggests my clock battery may be dead. Before I open the beast up - where on the TiVo series 1 board is the battery, and is it a simple case of buying a new battery and clipping it in like on a PC ?


It's ( from memory ) on the left hand side of the motherboard. It's very easy to identify as it's the round silver thing  Either a CR2025 or CR2032. Simple to replace.

Rgds,

R.


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Rob Nespor Bellis said:


> It's ( from memory ) on the left hand side of the motherboard. It's very easy to identify as it's the round silver thing  Either a CR2025 or CR2032. Simple to replace.


Its a CR2032. I know those batteries by heart as my Sharp IQ organisers used to eat copious quantities of them for breakfast, lunch and dinner.


----------



## ColinYounger (Aug 9, 2006)

Pete77 said:


> A failed battery does not (so far as I know) stop the Tivo then picking up the correct time and date when it next dials in.


I think this is a key point - I wouldn't expect a hang there either.

Can you post your tvlog file (assuming you have network access and tivoweb)?


----------



## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

CR2032s are used on PC motherboards as the CMOS backup battery, so its cheaper (free) to get them from old or dead PC motherboards before junking the board.

They can last a decade in a PC, so it doesn't matter how old the PC was.

Most people have an IT savvy mate who will have a box of them from old PCs...

I doubt the battery is your problem though, see if it can make the daily call successfully immediately after a reboot - as failure to do a daily call can be caused by bad/no swap file.


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

mikerr said:


> CR2032s are used on PC motherboards as the CMOS backup battery, so its cheaper (free) to get them from old or dead PC motherboards before junking the board.
> 
> They can last a decade in a PC, so it doesn't matter how old the PC was.
> 
> ...


I replaced my CR2032 battery out of throughness when replacing my power supply a couple of months ago, but as the Tivo was remembering the time and date after power failures (including the 8 and 16 hour ones I had in January) it clearly still had some juice left in it after 7 years.

Although I take Mike's point about financial prudence I suspect that for the sake of two or three quid most people would feel like using a new battery in this kind of situation. However I also concur with Mike that I very much doubt that an issue with the battery will actually be preventing the Tivo resyncing the time correctly when it makes its daily call.


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

ColinYounger said:


> I think this is a key point - I wouldn't expect a hang there either.
> 
> Can you post your tvlog file (assuming you have network access and tivoweb)?


Never ever had that with my Tivo when making its Daily Call I have to say.


----------



## 6022tivo (Oct 29, 2002)

It uses a funny IP port to set the clock, I have seen many threads that report sucessfull calls but the time goes way out.. I have not known a blocked port cause the tivo to hang.


----------



## Rob Nespor Bellis (Feb 17, 2001)

It's not a funny port it uses the standard port for ntp of 123.

Rgds,

R.


----------



## SteveA (Oct 30, 2000)

Check out CPC for batteries. They sell CR2032's in packs of 5 for £1.82 (for all five, not each!)

http://*******.com/35yzql (That's tiny url dot com / 35yzql)


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

SteveA said:


> Check out CPC for batteries. They sell CR2032's in packs of 5 for £1.82 (for all five, not each!)
> 
> http://*******.com/35yzql (That's tiny url dot com / 35yzql)


The URL doesn't work but I imagine there is P&P on top.

Battery prices vary hugely between retailer but in this case only one is required so it won't break the bank.


----------



## SteveA (Oct 30, 2000)

There's no P&P if you place a big enough order, and I'm just passing along general information that CPC is a good place to buy batteries generally. If you get through a lot of AAs and AAAs they sell them in boxes of 40, if you prefer to repair rechargable battery packs than buy new ones, they sell tagged cells.

I knew tiny-url would be censored, hence the bit in brackets. I'm sure you can work out how to reconstruct it!


----------



## groovyclam (Feb 18, 2002)

£1.99 from the local hardware shop for a new battery and the TiVo now is back in fine fettle. Daily call success and everything.


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

groovyclam said:


> £1.99 from the local hardware shop for a new battery and the TiVo now is back in fine fettle. Daily call success and everything.


Interesting that a flat battery does seem to be critical to stopping the Daily Call completing then. I can't quite understand this as the clock ought to be drawing its power from the mains at that point.

The batteries can probably last 10 years normally in a Tivo but when you leave the unit off for months on end the battery clearly has to do a lot more work to support memory of the time and date.


----------



## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

I hate tiny-url and so does this forum it appears...

Here's the direct cpc link


----------

