Chosen Solution
My FinePix S2980 resets time and date to 00:00 01.01.2000 whenever it is switched off and the SD card and/or batteries are removed for charging. Today I noticed it initially was set to 31.12.1999 when I first switched on the camera, then continued with 01.01.2000 following on/off (but no memory card or battery removal) even though it was only minutes later on the same morning. As I sometimes forget I have to reset time & date each time I use the camera, I have hundreds of photographs with 01.01.2000 as the date taken. It is driving me mad. Please can you suggest a cure? Thank you.
This fault is apparently unsolvable and cannot be repaired. There is no internal battery inside a FinePix camera, just a small capacitor soldered to the main board. Whether from old age (S2980 released 2012) or age + use related, the capacitor eventually fails, so you have much less time to change batteries (typically 10-15 seconds) or remove the SD-card. A workaround solution is swapping the batteries extremely fast or removing the SD card fast, means that the battery chamber cover is only open for a matter of seconds before being closed again.
I am not a camera technician but can you find out if you have a small watch type battery or it may be called a CMOS battery like a home computer has to keep certain things in its memory such as the date and time, this seems like your problem. The CMOS battery is dead.
