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[Rubius]

IMy PC is ten years old or more, never had to replace the battery on the motherboard.

Maybe it will be easier to reset the Bios on the Wii U and make it more/less pirate friendly?

 

[Why would you do that?]

This makes me even more nervous, you know how hard it is to design an easily replaceable part like that, takes a lot of little stuff which makes the console a bit bigger and harder to produce due to having to deal with these parts.

Its the reason why computers and other devices dont bother and just put it right on the motherboard.

Why would Ninty go to such a great length to make it so easy to change??????

Weird....

It has a similar flap on Gamecube and Wii. It beats the alternative of opening up the whole case to replace the battery. I have bad memories of wiping the BIOS password on multiple school computers because the battery was so hard to take out. lol

 

[Gianni Merryman]

Maybe it will be easier to reset the Bios on the Wii U and make it more/less pirate friendly?

I don't know - btw I guess the battery is only for internal clock/calendar, not a big deal - I was just saying for those worried that in my experience these batteries last a very long time and having to replace one is not a common occurrence.

 

[Roo]

We will be discussing about Wii U's sucessor before we have to change this little battery

 

[VariantX]

We will be discussing about Wii U's sucessor before we have to change this little battery

This. There are probably plenty of gamecubes out there that still have batteries with juice in them now.

 

[MidnightScott]

So the clock runs on battery?

Wouldn't the Wii also have this?

 

[J-Rod]

It's used to power the CMOS which is a tiny bit of memory that saves your bios settings (the memory doesn't hold the bios itself, just the settings). I've never had to replace one, but back in the day before they had fancy buttons on the mobo to reset the bios settings, popping the battery out for a few seconds was a good way to do it. No one buy a battery. You'll lose it before you ever need it.

Further, pretty much every piece of electronics have one if it keeps up with the time. Camcorders, consoles, laptops, desktops. Have you ever had to replace the button cell in those? Then don't worry about it

 

[Easy_D]

This is exactly the same as the Wii.

It's not surprising. :/

No problem then, my launch Wii never lost the time. So why the ":/"ness. I mean it's worked for almost 6 years, 6 years!

 

[UltimateIke]

No problem then, my launch Wii never lost the time. So why the ":/"ness.

To denote my disdain towards this thread.

 

[RagnarokX]

 

[Mit-]

Yup. Same thing is in the Wii. Take a screw out and slide it on out. Saw it while taking mine apart. And I took it out, too. So no, nothing happens except the time stopping. Which doesn't matter much because you can change the time manually to what it should be anyways.

 

[Gianni Merryman]

No problem then, my launch Wii never lost the time. So why the ":/"ness. I mean it's worked for almost 6 years, 6 years!

Oddly enough my Wii's clock has never been in time, I have never bothered too much anyway, although I hope this time around they'll fix this little issue, what with MiiVerse and all the online/community stuff I may want to have a more precise clock reference.

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

Either the Saturn was way ahead of its time, or the WiiU is way behind its time.

Maybe both?

 

[Massa]

Either the Saturn was way ahead of its time, or the WiiU is way behind its time.

Maybe both?

Neither. There's nothing unusual about this at all.

 

[adroit]

NeoGAF should be renamed "SunGAF" or "NeoSUN" in honor of this thread (and the UK tabloid The Sun, where sensationalist headlines like "time to stock up on coin cell batteries" belong).

 

[Easy_D]

To denote my disdain towards this thread.

Oh right, totally misunderstood you

 

[ASTROID2]

There just making the Wii U more user friendly. No need to make a big deal out of it.

 

[Syph Medwes]

This is the same battery used in Pokemon Gold and Silver. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

 

[Persona7]

This reminded me, didn´t the Dreamcast use CR2032 batteries as well? Might have to replace mine, I just found out the calendar resets every time I plug it back in.

If I remember correctly, the dreamcast has a re-chargeable battery for the Internal Clock.

 

[Eric C]

Basically everything uses a battery like this to store the current time. Including pretty much every consumer computer. Not sure why this is a big deal? They very rarely fully drain over the lifetime of the product, and at least this one is user-replaceable.

Except for the Sega Saturn, that one had to be replaced pretty frequently.

The Dreamcast VMU battery drained pretty fast too.

 

[Starwolf_UK]

In response to the title I thought 2 things:
1) Are they going to stop making these like old energy inefficient light bulbs?
2) Oh man, do we have to insert one each time we boot up. Like quarters or something...

I had a motherboard CMOS battery go on me (after about a decade...). Annoying as I couldn't boot into normal Windows, only safe mode for some reason (I had a netbook just as powerful as that ancient desktop by then so switched to that). Replaced it and it still didn't work making me wonder if the battery actually was flat at all

Yes, the Wii uses one too for the same function. In this case, they've just made it easier to replace for end-users.

I remember once on another forum someone bought a Wii and thought that battery actually was the NAND and was asking how to upgrade it. They even said all that happened was the clock stopped saving.

 

[Why would you do that?]

This is the same battery used in Pokemon Gold and Silver. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

The battery in Game Boy/Color games are actually a little smaller - CR2025. They are similar, though.

 

[imjust1n]

People... Calm down. Every electronic equipment including pc Macs game consoles even cell phones have a internal batter that runs off the clock... Where have you been this is not old. In fact this as a technician is awesome.

 

[kitsuneyo]

Might as well by some for my Saturn. At least it has some way of running the clock when not on power, unlike the original Xbox.

EDIT: Does anyone know how the ps360 keep the clock running? Or are their batteries just not user swappable?

Wait... my Xbox 360's clock resets every time I unplug it, unless it's connected to the internet. It's done that ever since I bought it new 3 years ago, and it's very annoying. I thought there was no clock battery in there? Are you telling me there's just something wrong with my Xbox's clock battery?

EDIT: Xbox 360 has no CMOS battery http://gaming.stackexchange.com/que...tery-in-xbox-360-to-preserve-datetime-setting

My hope now is that WiiU uses the internet to keep its time accurate.

 

[muu]

Got a stack of them for my HRM on my bike. No issues here.

 

[test_account]

It wouldn't be the first time Nintendo's done this. See Game & Watch:

http://i1226.photobucket.com/albums/ee420/gartukx/CIMG9032.jpg

Those were batteries to power the whole system though. The battery in WiiU seems to be for the internal clock only.


I'm not sure why they went with this WiiU solution, but it doesnt hurt that you can change that battery.

 

[UltimateIke]

Apparently the original Xbox has a capacitor that keeps the time for a short period while the system is unplugged. There isn't a battery. I don't know about the 360.

The Xbox does not have a CMOS clock or Battery to keep memory. What does it have? There is a 1 Farad 2.5V Aerogel Capacitor at location C7G10. The capacitor holds 2.5 couloumbs of charge when fully charged. At a discharge rate of 0.14 mC/s, the capacitor should last about 5 hours to zero, although the clock probably stops working around 1.3V, so this confirms xboxmagic's 2-3 hour number. Aerogels are relatively new, that's the first people have seen an aerogel in a consumer electronics product, besides a VCR, or other product that can keep clock memory for quick power outages.

So in the end, the answer is: MSFT cut cost by not putting a long-life real time clock part on the XBOX, and instead integrated it into the MCPX; because of this, the current draw was high and they were forced to use a supercap which charges while powered on, becuase if they didn't by the time the box was shipped to the customer, the battery would be mostly dead.

http://home.comcast.net/~admiral_powerslave/howworks.html

 

[Zing]

Basically everything uses a battery like this to store the current time. Including pretty much every consumer computer. Not sure why this is a big deal? They very rarely fully drain over the lifetime of the product, and at least this one is user-replaceable.

Considering how much Nintendo has been trying to cut corners in recent years, the battery may drain far more quickly than expected. I can't otherwise explain why they went through the added expense of engineering and producing a dedicated battery slot.

 

[Rebel Leader]

... we may need them.

From the Wii U Manual

http://www.polygon.com/2012/11/7/3614048/wii-u-launch-nintendo-network-manual

Haven't seen this in a while.

I'm going to assume we will never have to do this. Still, it's interesting they put it in the manual.

What's the battery used for anyways?

--

EDIT: It's just a time keeper thine?

 

[Zing]

Oddly enough my Wii's clock has never been in time, I have never bothered too much anyway, although I hope this time around they'll fix this little issue, what with MiiVerse and all the online/community stuff I may want to have a more precise clock reference.

I agree. My Wii's clock has drifted since day one. I just set the time to match my cell phone a few weeks ago. I bet if I power it on now, it will be at least 10 minutes off. It's ridiculous.

 

[LordMuffin]

Considering how much Nintendo has been trying to cut corners in recent years, the battery may drain far more quickly than expected. I can't otherwise explain why they went through the added expense of engineering and producing a dedicated battery slot.

Am I really reading this? :lol

I just pictured Iwata at an executive meeting brainstorming together with his crew on how to cut manufacturing cost down while suddenly someone slams the fist on the conference table and proudly proclaims "I got it, gentlemen!" "We're gonna put half-drained cell batteries in the WiiU to save on the costs!", which prompts the bystanders to erupt in a cheering round of applause.

Wii's user manual had the same exact estate on paper dedicated to the replacement procedure.

 

[sado]

Thank god I stocked up on these for my real red dot sight for my rifle. Don't have the rifle any more but I've been wondering what to do with these batteries since I sold it. Now I have a reason! Yay!

 

[Galang]

I don't get what's the big deal if it was in the GC and Wii as well. I've never heard anyone complain about this until now.

 

[Jockel]

Cool, they used CR2032 batteries for keeping SRAM alive since the NES days.

 

[DonMigs85]

I don't get what's the big deal if it was in the GC and Wii as well. I've never heard anyone complain about this until now.

Next we'll have a report that the Wii U runs on electricity

 

[PowderedToast]

no

no

sorry, im so sick of this S H I T

wii was battery hell. its fucking 2012 sort your shit out nintendo!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[UltimateIke]

no

no

sorry, im so sick of this S H I T

wii was battery hell. its fucking 2012 sort your shit out nintendo!!!!!!!!!!!!

Is this a joke or did you not read anything in this thread?

 

[HaRyu]

By the time the battery runs out of juice, we'll probably be into the next console cycle, hell, maybe two console cycles later.

PS3s should be using a battery too. My first PS3, I had to take that sucker apart to reflow it, and there's a battery there, if I recall.

 

[Alex]

Hooray, now I can pull it out for 30 seconds when I fuck up the overclock on my Wii U!

 

[Mindlog]

This is a pretty neat feature. Nice little detail that makes maintenance easier.

 

[pestul]

It's good to include convenient access like this to it so the console can continue on for years and years.

Btw, you can buy like 20 of these for $5 on Ebay.

 

[Jake Tower]

Sega Saturn 2.0

 

[PowderedToast]

Is this a joke or did you not read anything in this thread?

what answer makes me look best

 

[UltimateIke]

what answer makes me look best

I've seen people post crazier things and be serious about it, so I don't always know what to expect anymore. I'll assume the best.

 

[abasm]

I love how the Wii has the exact same clock battery replacement mechanism and this is touted as a big deal. Hang in there, it'll be out before you know it.

 

[giant_frying_pan]

I heard if you don't replace the dead battery, the Wii U makes a large beeping sound until you replace it

 

[Jake Tower]

Cool, they used CR2032 batteries for keeping SRAM alive since the NES days.

My Zelda II save game from 1989 is still alive.

 

[Jarnet87]

the saturn still lives on through modern consoles !

 

[Currygan]

I wonder if those old Game&Watch batteries are still usable

 

[Yka]

Apparently the original Xbox has a capacitor that keeps the time for a short period while the system is unplugged. There isn't a battery. I don't know about the 360.

Yeah, I just bought my first original Xbox to play RalliSport Challenge 2 and the Xbox clock would reset every time I unplugged the console. I opened the case and found a busted PowerStor aerogel 2.5v 1F capacitor. This seems to be a common problem with original Xboxes.

So now I have to get a new capacitor, detach the motherboard, remove the busted capacitor, clean the motherboard, solder the new capacitor and put it all back together.

I much prefer the Nintendo's design choice.