[comp.sys.ibm.ps2.hardware] PS/2 Model 50 loses track of time

wjb@cogsci.cog.jhu.edu (William J. Bogstad) (10/02/90)

	I have a PS/2 Model 50 under my care which seems to lose track of
time.  If it is turned off for a period of time (a couple of hours?) it stops
incrementing the time and when restarted it thinks the time & date are from
whenever it stopped counting.  If turned off for a few minutes, it comes back
on with the correct to the second time.  My supposition is that this is a
battery problem, but I thought that a weak battery would also cause problems
with the setup and I would have to rerun the Reference Diskette.  Is this
incorrect?  Any ideas?  Any sources for replacement batteries?

				Thanks,
				Bill Bogstad

mgphl@msa3b.UUCP (Michael Phillips) (10/03/90)

wjb@cogsci.cog.jhu.edu (William J. Bogstad) writes:


>	I have a PS/2 Model 50 under my care which seems to lose track of
>time.  If it is turned off for a period of time (a couple of hours?) it stops
>incrementing the time and when restarted it thinks the time & date are from
>whenever it stopped counting.  If turned off for a few minutes, it comes back
>on with the correct to the second time.  My supposition is that this is a
>battery problem, but I thought that a weak battery would also cause problems
>with the setup and I would have to rerun the Reference Diskette.  Is this
>incorrect?  Any ideas?  Any sources for replacement batteries?

>				Thanks,
>				Bill Bogstad

In the early days of PS/2 mod 50s, we had the same type problem.  This was
corrected with (honest!) a device driver named DASDDRV.SYS (or DASDRV.SYS ?).
I thought it strange, but was explained to me as a fix for some BIOS bugs.
*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*
Michael G. Phillips :: D & B Software  :: Atlanta, Ga.
"Constants aren't and Variables don't"

shack@cs.arizona.edu (David Michael Shackelford) (10/05/90)

In article <1398@msa3b.UUCP> mgphl@msa3b.UUCP (Michael Phillips) writes:
>wjb@cogsci.cog.jhu.edu (William J. Bogstad) writes:
>
>
>>	I have a PS/2 Model 50 under my care which seems to lose track of
>>time.  If it is turned off for a period of time (a couple of hours?) it stops
>> [...]

>In the early days of PS/2 mod 50s, we had the same type problem.  This was
>corrected with (honest!) a device driver named DASDDRV.SYS (or DASDRV.SYS ?).

That's DASDDRVR.SYS and it patches a couple of BIOS problems.  I thought
it was meant to be a driver for the hard disk, since DASD is the name
IBM uses for disk drives, but it doesn't seem to make any difference
at all in hard drive access.  My system kept track of time properly,
but lost exactly one day if I kept it powered up past midnight because
the day counter wasn't incremented.  DASDDRVR fixed the problem immediately.

If you're already using this driver, then I suspect the battery.  There
might be a diagnostic on the reference diskette which can help.  If you
run all of the diagnostic programs except the one that formats the hard
drive, it might indicate if there's a problem.

Hope it's not anything more serious!

Dave       |   shack@cs.arizona.edu

RMC@psuvm.psu.edu (Ron Crandall) (10/08/90)

In article <441@caslon.cs.arizona.edu>, shack@cs.arizona.edu (David Michael
Shackelford) says:
>
>In article <1398@msa3b.UUCP> mgphl@msa3b.UUCP (Michael Phillips) writes:
>>wjb@cogsci.cog.jhu.edu (William J. Bogstad) writes:
>>
>>
>>>      I have a PS/2 Model 50 under my care which seems to lose track of
>>>time.  If it is turned off for a period of time (a couple of hours?) it
>stops
>>> [...]
>
>>In the early days of PS/2 mod 50s, we had the same type problem.  This was
>>corrected with (honest!) a device driver named DASDDRV.SYS (or DASDRV.SYS ?).
>
>That's DASDDRVR.SYS and it patches a couple of BIOS problems.  I thought
>it was meant to be a driver for the hard disk, since DASD is the name
>IBM uses for disk drives, but it doesn't seem to make any difference
>at all in hard drive access.
>
It was called that because it also fixed occasional floppy disk problems. I
think it was specifically with DISKCOPY.
>
>If you're already using this driver, then I suspect the battery.
>
There is a POST (power on self test) message for battery failure. It is
a 161. Since the battery also backs up the CMOS RAM, a bad battery would
cause other problems besides just the clock not advancing.

Interestingly, I had similar sorts of problems with the clock when I
first got my Model 60, and I have used DASDDRVR.SYS since day 1. After
about 6 months of operation, the problem went away.
>
>Dave       |   shack@cs.arizona.edu
>
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