Yes here it is: The Timekeeper Repair Guide....

[TerraTron]

Hey guys,

Many CD-i players suffer from a failing timekeeper or NVRAM....offcourse you can chainge it but there is an other way.

Take a look at my new article on Lemonde:

HowTo: Repair you Timekeeper ram

Regards,

TerraTron

[Philipscdi.com]

That's pretty cool, TerraTron.
I guess you won't hear from me for a while now... I got some CD-i players to open up and a few holes to drill!

[Bas]

Hi Arno, that's a nice one. (how many more links can we expect ?) It's now undermining your future repair service, when we can all repair them ourselves

However, I just opened my 490 player: First: There's no SCART on that one. Second, no part called M48T08 anywhere.... what to do? can you make a close-up photo of the timekeeper part? Have you tested it on different types/models?

Next I opened the 450. That's even more different. Same thing, how to locate the timekeeper?.

[TerraTron]

In the 450 it's 100% a M48T05 -150PCI so just look for a chip called M48T08 - 150PCI .....and that's your timekeeper......

and I must say don't do this if you don't have knowledge of electronics!!!

I did the job on a CDI 210...... but this guide works for 100% for all Consumerplayers who have a 8 Kb NVRAM.....


TerraTron

[Bas]

aha, this helped me out. There's for sure no code on my 450, however. I recognize it from these pics.

[Devin]

Here's a question and NOT something I recommend anybody try out! Obviously the first time that this technique is applied all the game saves would be lost. Now after the button battery has been installed does a time limit exist between the batteries power running out and all game save data being lost? Is it possible to safely connect your CD-i player to the power supply to maintain these game saves then change over the button battery after say a year of service? Or is the Timekeepers power supply completely seperate from the rest of the player making it dependant on the button battery?

[cdifan]

When the player is powered on, the battery supply isn't used. So if you are careful you could change an external battery without losing the contents of your NVRAM.

Info taken from M48T08/M48T18 64 Kbit (8Kb x 8) TIMEKEEPER® SRAM on the ICDIA site in the CD-i Technical Documentation / System section.

Someone better versed in electronics then me should be able to calculate the life span of a "normal" battery from the specs.

[Bas]

very informative document, it helps me identifying the timekeeper itself! Well, my players still work flawlessly, so I won't try drilling those holes before I have to. Other than that, when I have a look at the cheap players offered at Ebay and Marktplaats, I really think you're better off buying a nice second-hand player. Definately when you're not a bit skilled with the drilling machine

It also makes me wonder if you could expand the memory when combining parts of two cd-i players or something.....

[cdifan]

The specified lifetime of the built-in battery is about 10 years of power-off time, which means that more and more players will be failing their NVRAM...

Memory expansion by chip replacement is possible on some players; it depends on the drivers. Some versions will autodetect between 8 Kb and 32 Kb (which was used on some 220 models). I have probably lost my notes on this, though; would need to re-check the disassembly listings...

In theory you could download the NVRAM contents on each power-on and save them externally with a special driver downloaded via the serial port on each boot; it ought to be possible to make an external "CD-i NVRAM" box this way It would not necessarily need to be 8 or 32 Kb, either. Somebody want a nice hobby project?

[Devin]

Perhaps a little Flash Drive or something similar, is that what your suggesting!

[Bas]

that would be sweet, a flashdrive instead of this battery! With players who have an incorporated DVC instead of one you can plug in, it's hard to remove the card, in my 490 they used screws which can't be unplugged, if I remove it, it'll break.

Terratron, I suggest inserting some (better) pics of the timekeeper itself (look at the brochure of ICDIA) because on both my players there's no text on the thing that is the timekeeper.

Oh, and what happened to your lightgun-project?