Mystery of the random TOY

[Jon_norstog <thursday allidaho com>]

To the list:

over the last couple years I have had a worsening problem with time
slippage in my XP1000.  I didn't know what was goin' on.  SRM for this
box does not have the "date" command, so I did not know where it got
word on date, time, year, etc.  Anyway, I was used to fighing date
changes when I booted up Tru64 and NT on other machines.

Last week I decided to see if the battery was low.  I went to pry it out
- the sping that holds it in is quite strong - and noticed that one of
the battery socket connections was loose.  By the time I got the battery
out (it tested OK, 3.3V) the other connection popped off as well!  It
looked like a cold joint to me. The socket is not pinned through the
motherboard, it is just soldered to a couple copper flats.

Fortunately there wasn't anything that looked heat-sensitive near the
connectors.  I freshened up the solder on the socket contacts, then
soldered them down to the board.

Since then the computer hasn't lost a second.  Also I can now unplug the
thing completely without having to warm up the chips for 10 minutes
before it will boot again after a weekend.

jn