I agree with Moose's analysis and would only add that it could also be
an intermittent hardware problem or a firmware bug. Regardless, what
they all have in common is that the camera is defective and should be
replaced if they haven't been able to fix it in two tries.
Chuck Norcutt
Moose wrote:
> Candace Lemarr wrote:
>
>>OK, but, see...<snip long, very sad story>
>> Now...does that make any sense to you? My brain has been working
>>overtime on this. Could the fl-50 make the camera do something like that?
>>Could my batteries be doing it? Could my charger be shorting out or some
>>weird thing, and screwing up my battery which in turn is messing with my
>>camera? I have 3 batteries, and the camera freezes with all of them.
>>
>
> The one thing that these troubles have in common is the loss of camera
> setting information when it should not be lost.
>
> All digicams have some provision for maintaining such info when you
> change the batteries. In the case of the E-300, page 127 of the manual says:
>
> "The date/time setting is saved for approximately 3 months using the
> built-in
> battery. Depending on how the camera is used, the date/time setting may be
> erased earlier. Date/time settings will also be lost if the camera is
> left for a long
> period with no battery loaded. The internal battery will be fully
> recharged in
> about one day with the camera’s battery loaded."
>
> I don't know specifically about the E-300, but with many electronic
> devices with settings backup batteries, including computers*, reliable
> operation even with main battery/AC power available still depends on the
> backup battery being functional. It seems like sloppy engineering, but
> it happens quite commonly. The fact that it takes about a day to
> recharge the back-up with the main battery in, means the current to it
> from the main is very small.
>
> It the BU is dead, it's possible that the trickle from the main battery
> is sufficient to maintain various internal settings most of the time,
> but occasionally, the number of system demands exceed that current, the
> voltage falls too low, operational data kept in internal memory are lost
> and the body locks up because it no longer knows where it is or what it
> is doing or there are incompatible conflicts in data. Removing the
> battery and replacing it when the BU is dead restarts the operating
> system from the non-volatile firmware storage, so it starts working again.
>
> Unfortunately, Oly took the more elegant solution of a built-in,
> rechargeable back-up battery. If I had this problem in a Can*n, for
> example, the first thing I would do is replace the battery with a fresh
> one. Of course, it could also be in the battery connections.
>
> Although the manual talks only about the date and time as being saved,
> I'll bet shot settings are also saved, otherwise, there would have been
> noise about that foolishness before now from people changing batteries
> in the middle of a session. You can check for sure by setting date/time,
> taking out the battery briefly and seeing if the date and time are lost.
> If so, you have a failure that justifies requiring Oly to service it
> again. And a possible culprit for your other troubles that would be
> repaired, either fixing things or eliminating one other possibility. No
> guarantees, but who knows.
>
> Moose
>
> The E-300 is really a computer, running a version of MSDos, more than
> likely.
>
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