Unitiserve SSD battery

The Naim logo on my Unitiserve flashes continuously, which I believe is symptomatic of the CMOS battery requiring replacement. It’s a few years old and spent the last couple of years on a cold garage shelf so a dead battery makes sense.

I don’t have a nearby dealer or service centre. If I replace it myself (anti static precautions etc), can I do it without connecting to a monitor ?

Replacing the battery is easy but I believe you do need a VGA monitor and a PS2 keyboard so you can tell the Unitiserve to load Naim default settings into the BIOS. But @NeilS can give you definitive advice on this if he has a moment or two to spare.

Best
David

Hi Elfer,

David is correct, you will need a VGA monitor & PS/2 keyboard to reset the BIOS once you have changed the battery.

If you manage to lay your hands on those items, let me know & I’ll walk you through it - it’s very easy.

Regards
Neil.

Naim will do it for three hundy :slight_smile:

Thanks for the offer Neil.

I won’t be home until the new year but will give you a shout once back, if I can come up with a monitor and keyboard.

Cheers !

Hi, did you keep it off for so many consecutive weeks then? I would like to know from the most expert or Naim technicians if to avoid this battery problem it is advisable to keep it always on …! I sometimes turn it off for several days and I’m definitely wrong!

A friend of mine asked that exact question of the tech guy at a top Naim dealer in the UK and was told that it made no difference to the life of the battery whether the Unitiserve was powered up or not.

Best
David

Hi Andrea,

It was off for a couple of years actually but as David mentioned, it’s not the fact it was switched off that drained the battery, it simply reached the end of its service life, accelerated by the cold.

VGA Monitors are not easy to find nowadays, but Amazon will help with a vga2hdmi converter for ~20€ so it will fit to a tv.

That’s a great tip Netsrot, thank you ! Will a VGA / USB adapter let me hook it to a laptop ?

VGA monitors are very easy to come by, in general just look for the cheapest monitors on amazon etc

Or in my loft…

If I can hook up to a tv or laptop via an adapter that would be preferred. Would much rather find somewhere to stash a bit of cable later rather than a monitor (and cable) I can’t see myself ever using again.

The UnitiServe also has both Composite and S-Video outputs available so these may allow you to more easily hook up the server to a TV rather than dealing with VGA monitors.

You will still need to have that PS/2 keyboard though.

Tony @ Basically Sound

Thanks Tony, even better as I’m sure I have leads somewhere !

How have you got on?

Meant to say that you can use a USB keyboard rather than PS/2.

S-video is now even harder to find, using the VGA 2 HDMI converter as @Netsrot recommends is better.

@NeilS may I ask why I cannot use wireless USB mouse with the unit? Actually I got 1 HP mouse before could work but forgot the model. I already tried 20+ other mice but unsuccesful :frowning: PS2 mouse now is too difficult to find

Does the USB mouse require special drivers? If so, it probably won’t work.

No @Richard.Dane, my old HP mouse just plug-n-play and it was shown in USB devices list. Other ones still use the wheel to roll up and down but can not move the pointer (at bottom left corner

You don’t need to use a mouse st all if you are just selecting the CMOS defaults after changing a battery. The PS/2 keyboard is enough.
Best
David