A500 clock battery - More newbie doubts!

[MrWho]

When booting workbench, it informs me that there's no clock battery present. There is, because it has an expansion card and I can see the blue battery there. Could it be because the A500 that was given to me was too long in the box without use? And if so, is it usually rechargeable? Will it recharge if I keep the Amiga on for a couple of hours? Is it easy to replace if not? Why are we on earth? What is the meaning of life? Is the answer really 42?

[Ilwrath]

Could it be because the A500 that was given to me was too long in the box without use?

Possibly.  Though, more likely, it's just that the battery is too old.

And if so, is it usually rechargeable?

The Amiga will attempt to recharge the battery... But the battery might not take it very well.  (In other words, the battery might only work for a few hours of having the Amiga turned off before it forgets the time again....)

Will it recharge if I keep the Amiga on for a couple of hours?

It'll try....

Is it easy to replace if not?

Pretty simple to replace.  Remove old battery.  Desolder/clean card. install new battery.  done.  :-)  I'd recommend doing this, anyhow.  Especially if you see any white "fuzz" growing on or near the battery.  That fuzz is corrosive, and will eventually damage the card, unless you remove the battery and clean the card.

Why are we on earth? What is the meaning of life? Is the answer really 42?

I always said there was something fundamentally wrong with the universe.......

[Thomas]

It does not tell you that there is no battery, it tells you there is no clock. If the battery goes empty, the clock might stop running. And if the clock is not running, it is not recognised by AmigaOS. And if it is not recognised, there is no legal way to start it again.

However, I've written a program which just fills the clock's memory area with zeros, no matter if there is a clock or not. This has restarted my clock several times.

Try this: http://home.t-online.de/home/thomas-rapp/download/RestartClock.lha

However, there is no guarantee that it does no harm to your computer.

You should check if the battery is ok, or the clock might stop running everytime you switch off the computer. Also a leaking battery might destroy the board. Load the battery on a regular basis to keep the clock alive.

Note that the battery backed up clock is *not* the system clock. The backed up clock is only used once during the boot process to syncronise the system clock. The Amiga will run fine without a battery backed up clock, just the system clock will go wrong.

Bye,
Thomas