System clock

[WorkHorse]

When I leave my computer on overnight, the clock looses an hour. Why?

[JungleMan]

That's the strangest problem I've seen all week.

Is this consistent?

How old is your board? Your CMOS battery might be quirky. But that's just odd. Very odd.

[WorkHorse]

PC has done it since I got it new. My old Compaq did (does) the same thing.

[WorkHorse]

And, no, it's not necessarily consistent. If I leave my PC on, it doesn't automatically mean it will drop an hour. Sometimes it does, and some times it doesn't. I've never "caught" it changing. I thought this happened to everyone. I was just curious why it happens.

[JungleMan]

So both of your computers do this?

Any software that runs in the background on both of them?

[Jethro]

Is your PC near anything that switches on at night. Heard of PC's losing a few minutes per month, but never an hour per night, and then only sometimes.

[WorkHorse]

No. I use MS Word a lot, so that is probably open every time. The Compaq doesn't have any virus protection stuff.

I'm not absolutley sure if the Compaq did this or not. I thought it did, but I'm not sure. I don't use it very often.

I'm fairly sure it happens whether or not I'm connected to the net.

I know there are programs that update your system clock, but I've just never bothered. I just reset the clock. It's not a problem. I just wonder why it happens.

[Jethro]

Not enough info Workhouse - have just run it across the support desk...

Is it connected to a network - time updated via wrong server...


Flakey CMOS battery, loses time during sleep at night


Beacon sneaks in your Window at night and changes the settings.


Post more details about your setup please....

[WorkHorse]

PC isn't near anything that switches on and off. Only thing in the plus is the PC and a light (hasn't always been the same light). The clock does lose a few minutes somtimes like most PCs, but the thing is some days when it is on I come home and it's almost exactly one hour back.

[Jethro]

Stand alone, or connect to network?

[JungleMan]

Originally posted by Jethro
Beacon sneaks in your Window at night and changes the settings.

Yep that's got to be it ;)

WorkHorse...any chance you can keep an eye on the PC often, perhaps during weekends?

[Jethro]

Originally posted by jpbtennisman


Yep that's got to be it ;)

WorkHorse...any chance you can keep an eye on the PC often, perhaps during weekends?

And if you find empty vb cans around it, then we have tracked the source of the problem;)

[Beacon]

And can ya return my flanalette shirt please...
;) :p

[Jethro]

Was waiting the response dude....

[Behemoth]

And its exactly an hour?...odd...

like justin said, can you monitor it. you say it sometimes drops and sometimes doesn't but its always 1 hour?

I assume you reset the clock when you discover this? If not, does it drop subsequent hours?

other than the battery (which shouldn't produce a regular issue like this), I can't think of anything else.

Its not even like your OS is switching about for daylight savings time because you get a messagebox up when it does that...

[Martin Wilson]

From PCWorld:Computers can lose as much as one minute each hour with some PC configurations, say developers of time-setting utilities. With each PC reboot, Windows syncs its software clock with a slightly more accurate hardware clock affixed to your motherboard. Both the software and hardware clocks, however, are flawed.

[jim mcnamara]

Martin - that accounts for 24 minutes per day.

On another tack - the software that set locale and changes from daylight savings to standard time (US terminology) can also do things to your clock settings.

If after the clock is reset, does it continue to 'lose' time? If not, then you need to do a warm re-install of the OS.

[beasty1711]

warm re-install....?? u mean hold the windows CD over the cooker??


you could write a small VB app that looks at the time ever5 mins etc and writes to a text file..... .this would help u establish if its loosing 1 hr all at once or a few mins every so oftern.


i know some power companys reduce the power supply to certain areas at night and weekends.
we had a customer who's server would re-boot every friday night at 11pm. We stuck a UPS in and it was fine..

[Behemoth]

any evidence that the machine is being powered off/rebooted during these periods?

[Jethro]

This has me confused, our hardware guys think it can happen but need more details. If the puter is connected to the net or running some piece of software, could be due to software resettting the clock periodically due to needing set start time for calculations, this generally only ever happens with physic programs which then reset the clock .... hey don't ask me passing on what l was told....

But also need the actual rig setup .....

[WorkHorse]

Of course I didn't give every detail of my PC, so it would probably be tough to guess this.

It's a stand-alone PC (not on a network). It is connected to the Internet through a phone modem. No cans or flanelette shirts (ok sometimes, but not on the days the clock jumps back). It only happens when the PC is on all night. It doesn't happen every night the PC is left on. It is almost exactly an hour back. I got tired of changing the time, so it can jump back an extra hour if I don't fix the time (right now it is 1 hour 7 minutes behind the regular clock that I use to know what time it actually is). It doesn't keep losing time (other than the normal expected amount), it just jumps back an hour then carrys on normally. There are no daylight savings time messages (unless it happens to be daylight savings time). It doesn't re-boot because the point of leaving the PC on is I'm too lazy to save all my files to a single folder, so all the prgrams are still running. I don't think a power surge or decrease would cause it because the clock runs off a battery, right?

Here's my prime suspect: Gateway GoBack. That is always running. I left the PC on last night (the clock didn't jump back this time) and checked the history log: While the PC is idle, an Internet file is being modified every hour (give or take a few minutes). It must have a bug that sometimes changes the system clock back to the last safe point.

[Behemoth]

whoah!

Wierd little world.

I'm at work and got a helpdes call that required me to time a manual operation. My watch is currently in my back pocket, so being a lazy SOB, I opened up the system clock to time it.

I noticed that every 3rd second seemed to take a lot longer to pass than the others, perhaps almost 120% longer. I've not compared the system clock to my watch, but I could almost guarantee its going to be losing time dramatically.

Wierd, eh?

[beasty1711]

hmmm... i just checked mine.... and its the same except its every 4 seconds

[Behemoth]

it might have been every 4 on mine, I was doing something else at the time, so I wasn't really paying attention.

What OS are you running? does it make any difference? Im on NT4.0 here

[beasty1711]

well i was on NT4... but did an upgraded to 2k bout 4months ago.... so not sure how much nt4 stuff is on it still

[Jez1]

Any system clock will seem to take longer over 1 second in about 4-6 seconds. This is because the system performs some operation every 4-6 seconds, even with the fastest processors the problem still occurs.

To compensate, the clock will run the other seconds ever so slightly quicker, and so always catches up the lost time.

[Behemoth]

dodgy seconds? Is that anything like sloppy seconds? :p

[beasty1711]

urrghhh nasty though.... sloppy seconds from MS :(

[Behemoth]

every 5th or 6th second on my home machine. Im running Win2k sp2 on a P2 333mhz with 128mb RAM.

Whew...it sounds so ancient when I say it aloud like that. I'm in need of an upgrade.

[scoutt]

Originally posted by Behemoth
other than the battery (which shouldn't produce a regular issue like this), I can't think of anything else.
ok besides beacon sneaking in your room at night and changing it

it is your cmos battery. no if ands or butts....

trust me I have seen this so many times. you windows clock gets it's time from the cmos then once it has the time it keeps it running. everytime you restart your computer windows gets the time. if the cmos is being slow then windows will be slow. so it is the CMOS battery...........

and yes you can buy brand new MB's and get a bad battery.