Six-burner stainless range with one cap lifted so the burner head and its electrode show, a full row of control knobs and the oven door open on an empty cavity. Numbered marks are drawn over it, at the one control knob per burner, burner head with the cap lifted off and the empty cavity, door lowered flat.
  1. One control knob per burner
  2. Burner head with the cap lifted off
  3. Empty cavity, door lowered flat

Warning signs · Viking ovens

The clock is flashing and the oven won't start

A flashing clock is the control telling you it lost track of the time, usually after the power dipped. On many ovens nothing will start until the clock has been set again, and a cook left programmed from before can block it too. Set the time first. If it still refuses, call Viking Repair Pros of Los Angeles.

What you can see, what it means, what to do now

See it

The time is blinking where it should be sitting still, and pressing bake or a temperature gets you nothing — or a short tone and no heat. Everything else about the oven looks normal.

What it means

The control keeps the time of day in memory and loses it whenever the supply goes, even for a second. Many ovens treat a clock they do not trust as a reason to refuse a cook, because a timed programme needs a clock to end on.

What to do tonight

Set the clock the way your own use and care guide describes, then cancel anything the oven still thinks it is waiting to do. Try a plain bake at any temperature. If the clock goes on blinking, or it starts blinking again by morning, stop there.

Still doing it after that? Call Viking Repair Pros of Los Angeles on (213) 652-7030. The $89 visit covers the fault-finding and comes off the repair.

A clock that will not stay set is a different problem

Setting the time is a quick job and it ends most of these calls. What matters is what happens next. A clock that holds is a clock that only ever lost the time because the house did — a flicker, a breaker knocked off, a socket switched at the wall behind the range. A clock that empties itself again overnight is telling you the control is losing its own supply while everything around it stays on, and that is a wiring or a board question rather than a setting one. Note how long it keeps the time before it forgets, because that one observation is worth more to a technician than any description of the display.

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Follow-ups

Can I use the oven at all while the clock is blinking?

If it takes a temperature and heats, yes — a blinking clock on its own does not make an oven unsafe. What you should not do is set a timed cook or a delayed start, because both hang on a clock the control has already told you it does not trust.

Signed

Birgit Halloran

Works on
ovens and heating
Time served
24 years

24/7 · Los Angeles, CA

Tell us what the oven is doing. We will tell you what that usually is.

$89 pays for the visit and the fault-finding, then comes off the repair. On site 8:00 am – 8:00 pm, seven days.