R7 losing time

[phonesaz]

I have installed 75-100 R7 systems since it was released, and have had no problems other than the out of the box port failures, which have gotten better as time went on...last 6 mos or so have been pretty good. I also pretty much ignore all the daylight savings patches, since AZ doesn't do daylight savings, so we never have an issue. I have noticed, however, that the R7 display time loses about 5 minutes a month on some of the systems. Has anyone ever heard of this?? Is this something Avaya considers a problem, or do we just live with it? Thanks

 

[sjs1717]

I know in the 8500 I was trained on there was documentation to that exact fact....5 mins per month. a tech for avaya told me it was pretty much "normal" in their eyes.


Steve
We're doing this stuff for the wealth and fame right?

 

[Dexman]

The Partner has never really been good about keeping accurate time. Given all of the other devices in your typical office that have a clock, it just didn't seem worth the trouble. I've heard that the clock is driven by the frequency of the AC power source.

For owners that have Caller ID service, the "J" patch uses the time stamps sent by the LEC to adjust the T.O.D. clock.

Short of that, all you can do is pretty much either ignore the displayed time or manually adjust it when it gets too far out of whack.

If it ain't broke, I haven't fixed it yet.

 

[dagwoodsystems]

Real Time Clock chips use a quartz crystal and oscillator to derive the time. Manufacturing tolerances of the crystals (not to mention temperature change) affects the regularity of the timing signal.

Personal computers use the identical technology to keep time, and they are also poor timekeepers. Until Microsoft added the ability to sync with an Internet time source, computer users would often complain about 5 minute/month clock drifts. The time stamp on your files or emails is pretty important, yet manufacturers feel that clocks of this accuracy is sufficient. Aside from cost considerations, Avaya probably reasoned that if it's good enough for a computer, it's good enough for a phone system (particularly since it doesn't affect the basic functions of a PBX).

There's an interesting article about the use of crystals in time-keeping devices at

http://www.best-microcontroller-projects.com/ppm.html.

Tim Alberstein

http://www.dagwoodsystems.com

 

[1043]

Avaya always says "we're not in the business of keeping time.