Indigo: get around "can't set tod clock" message?

[Georg Schwarz]

My two faithful R4K Indigos both, after having been unused for a long
time, now start up with the "can't set tod clock" repeating all over on
the console. This to my knowledge seems to indicate a dead battery
(soldered to the board).
Is there any way to bypass that message and boot up the machine short of
unsoldering and replacing the battery?

--
Georg Schwarz http://home.pages.de/~schwarz/
georg....@freenet.de +49 151 11559652

[Walther Mathieu]

Georg Schwarz wrote:
> My two faithful R4K Indigos both, after having been unused for a long
> time, now start up with the "can't set tod clock" repeating all over on
> the console. This to my knowledge seems to indicate a dead battery
> (soldered to the board).
> Is there any way to bypass that message and boot up the machine short of
> unsoldering and replacing the battery?
>

Yes. The original battery is hard to get AFAIK, but a solution is
to solder in a coin cell holder (+ a bit of wire) and use a CR2032 3.6V
battery.

I did this a few times and it works like a charm ever after.

Easy job, but be careful not to damage the precious main board:
it is ESD sensitive, so both you and your soldering iron must be
grounded properly.

Btw., there are plenty of threads covering this issue at nekochan.net.

Walther