IIgs frozen in time!

[Tristan Mumford <xtristan.xmumford@xgmail.xcom>]

Hello,

I have a problem which I have been working through with people, most notably
Jonnyboy who has subjected his IIgs to the necessary probing.

The problem is that the clock on my IIgs has stopped, but everything else
works perfectly including PRAM.

It started when I decided to do a cheapie AA battery replacement. I read
back in csa2 using the wonder of Google Groups to find some answers. I
ended up opting for the 3x"AA" solution, attached to the snipped battery
leads with homemade springs made from stray resistor leads. Resistor leads
are a poor choice by the way. Don't try it if you value your sanity.

Anyway, after attaching the battery, with my always paranoid attention to
polarity and ESD, the PRAM lost its amnesia, but the clock stopped!

In the meantime I have tried probing with my crummy multimeter just to get a
feel of what happened. The 1Hz line from the clock isn't ticking. Also
disconnecting the battery makes no difference besides loss of PRAM of
course.
In this time of probing I found something else. After the voltage drops
through components, the Vcc pin on the clock chip was 4.24v under AC power,
which was less than the 4.5v being supplied under battery!
Correct me if I'm wrong but this would have caused a 'flip' in the battery
vs. AC modes of the clock chip, causing unknown results.

I have also tried cutting back to 2x"AA" batteries getting the voltage back
to 3v, and have replaced the powersupply with one yielding a much healthier
voltage at roughly 5v, as opposed to the 4.72v of the old one at the MoBo
5v pin.

My main suspect is the clock xtal. Testing it is the biggest issue I have. I
think I can get away with injecting a clock signal into the XIN pin of the
clock chip briefly to see of the clock advances. Would this be destructive?
I don't think it would be, but I have been known to be wrong.

If it's not the crystal then about all I can do is ask for help. Ie of
anyone has a dead IIgs motherboard lying around that they could either send
me, or just the clock chip? A living sacrifice is unthinkable to help one
living in the past come to terms with the present.

Just to clarify one point, I can set the time, and it stays at that time,
never advancing. It does not forget.

Any ideas would be eagerly welcomed!

Tristan.

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