r/Gamecube • u/DoshinTheYellowGiant • 2d ago

Help Gamecube clock is allways falling out of sync

So after the CMOS battery in my Gamecube ran out, i replaced it with a socket for a button cell, which works fine and all but every time i do not use my Gamecube for a few weeks, after i return the clock is just a little off. Sometimes it's just an hour, other times its a whole day or week.

My console is plugged into a power strip, which i always turn off whenever i'm not using any of my consoles to save energy - basically every time i leave the house or whenever i go to sleep.

Before i swapped out the original battery, it would allways stop tracking the time whenever i turned of the console. Now it keeps tracking it, but after a few weeks it keeps gets out of sync. What causes this? I'm pretty sure i did a solid solder job with the battery socket

4 Upvotes

71% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

7

u/Tricky_Tourist5691 2d ago

The GC motherboad has a quartz crystal for timekeeping, just like a typical battery wristwatch, but due to the consoles age, the crystal might have become out of tune, and throwing off the clock. I cant remember if the clock was even that accurate back when GCs were new. But it seems pretty common that they're inaccurate these days.

Is it a DOL-001 or 101 btw? What I've seen, these models have different oscillating crystals for the clock.

1

u/my2k2zx2 2d ago

I had a GC in that the clock could be set, but any time the system was shut off and powered back on, it would revert back to that set time. Was suggested to me to swap the X2 crystal and that fixed things. No idea if it's related to this one but it fixed the clock issue I was having.

1

u/DoshinTheYellowGiant 2d ago

It's a DOL-001

3

u/rctgamer3 PAL 2d ago

Just resync it every few weeks or months. Only takes a few seconds. No game including Animal Crossing needs the seconds to be accurate

2

u/RAMONE40 2d ago

Every clock goes out of sinc at some point some just go Faster than other

And in the GameCubes case it may be due to old age

2

u/Fickle_Row781 2d ago

The clock was always noticeably inaccurate even when GC was brand new. I wouldn't think too much of it. Set a reminder alarm to adjust it every 7-14 days if you really care.

1

u/Able_Concert_1022 1d ago

mine thinks it’s 2068 & im too lazy to fix it