comp clock loses time every day

toyota

Lifer
Apr 15, 2001
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I can reset the time on my comp every day but before I go to bed it has lost about 10-12 seconds. this is a new comp and its pretty irritating to keep resetting the time. I have tried syncing with different servers and even not syncing with internet time at all but it makes no difference.
 

Fardringle

Diamond Member
Oct 23, 2000
9,199
765
126
It's possible that the board has been sitting on a shelf somewhere for a long time, or it simply has a cheap/bad battery. A new battery will cost a couple of dollars and is definitely the first thing to try to fix this problem.
 

toyota

Lifer
Apr 15, 2001
12,957
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okay thanks for the replies. this is a fairly high end board so I would find it strange that a cheap battery was used. this board is also a popular board that I purchased from newegg so I doubt it sat around very long. I have cheap comps from 2003 and 2005 in my house that keep the proper time just fine so this seems like an odd issue to me.
 

toyota

Lifer
Apr 15, 2001
12,957
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Originally posted by: RebateMonger
And don't use time.windows.com. It's not terribly reliable, in my experience.

Use one of the NIST time servers if you are in the U.S.

I have tried most of them over the last few days and it didnt help.

I reset my time about 8 hours ago and I am already 42 seconds off. I guess this probably is no big deal but this is my first pc build and I am wondering if something could be wrong with the motherboard to cause this.
 

RebateMonger

Elite Member
Dec 24, 2005
11,586
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Originally posted by: toyota
I reset my time about 8 hours ago and I am already 42 seconds off. I guess this probably is no big deal but this is my first pc build and I am wondering if something could be wrong with the motherboard to cause this.
I had a motherboard once that had this problem. It was a 1989-era 386 board. Ended up replacing the board. Based on my experiences, I'd say this NOT a common problem.
 

Laputa

Golden Member
Jan 18, 2000
1,775
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Yup, it's likely the board and likely the timer issue. So it's not going to help; no matter what you try to do to fix it. You can try to update the BIOS to see if that can fix it or not. The 2nd lease expensive route is to change out the battery. Or consider a new system board as a new Christmas present:B
 

Cdubneeddeal

Diamond Member
Oct 22, 2003
7,473
3
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Change out the CMOS battery for $20 Alex. Like others have said. Perhaps the battery they used during the install was old stock.
 

toyota

Lifer
Apr 15, 2001
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I think the new battery fixed it. I changed it 3 hours ago and I havent lost a single second yet. if this holds up then I guess it was just a defective battery which is silly for a brand new motherboard. gigabyte had told me to rma the board and I told them that I wasnt removing all that hardware, paying to ship the motherboard and being without my pc for weeks because of this.
 

toyota

Lifer
Apr 15, 2001
12,957
1
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well shit it went right back to losing time. besides the aggravation of the clock being off is there any other harm in this? I dont want to rma the board for this crap if nothing else is being affected.
 

Modelworks

Lifer
Feb 22, 2007
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It isn't the battery. Its the PLL circuitry on the board.
Some boards don't even use the battery at all unless the power is removed from the PS.

This is a picture of the areas the could be at fault using a abit ab9pro as an example. Ignore the fan controllers, pic was for another users question.
http://i39.tinypic.com/357q44g.jpg


The areas on your board at fault are the quartz crystals which can be in many forms from the cylinder type to the type in the can on the picture.
There isn't anything you can do about it and it could get worse over time. Crystals are normally well tested but like everything , sometimes bad one slip through. It could also be other parts between it and the real time clock.
RMA the board while you still can.

 

toyota

Lifer
Apr 15, 2001
12,957
1
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Originally posted by: Modelworks
It isn't the battery. Its the PLL circuitry on the board.
Some boards don't even use the battery at all unless the power is removed from the PS.

This is a picture of the areas the could be at fault using a abit ab9pro as an example. Ignore the fan controllers, pic was for another users question.
http://i39.tinypic.com/357q44g.jpg


The areas on your board at fault are the quartz crystals which can be in many forms from the cylinder type to the type in the can on the picture.
There isn't anything you can do about it and it could get worse over time. Crystals are normally well tested but like everything , sometimes bad one slip through. It could also be other parts between it and the real time clock.
RMA the board while you still can.

the board is only a month old now so i still have plenty of time to rma it. I just dont feel like fooling it with because I dont want to be without my computer for weeks plus pay to ship it. its only lost 2 seconds since I changed the battery the other day and before that I was losing more than that every hour. if nothing else is affected besides the clock then i may never even worry about it.
 

Modelworks

Lifer
Feb 22, 2007
16,240
7
76
Is it the board in your sig ?
If the board uses a clock chip to keep the time then it isn't anything critical and the worst that would happen is it losing the ability to keep time. If it uses a internal clock integrated into another chip then that could cause problems in the long term since it could be using the timing of the PLL loop for other things.

Two seconds loss isn't anything to be concerned about as long as it takes days to do it. If it losing it every hour, etc then that is a problem.

 

toyota

Lifer
Apr 15, 2001
12,957
1
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Originally posted by: Modelworks
Is it the board in your sig ?
If the board uses a clock chip to keep the time then it isn't anything critical and the worst that would happen is it losing the ability to keep time. If it uses a internal clock integrated into another chip then that could cause problems in the long term since it could be using the timing of the PLL loop for other things.

Two seconds loss isn't anything to be concerned about as long as it takes days to do it. If it losing it every hour, etc then that is a problem.

yeah its the board in my sig. so do you know if this board uses a clock chip or not?
 

Modelworks

Lifer
Feb 22, 2007
16,240
7
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Originally posted by: toyota

yeah its the board in my sig. so do you know if this board uses a clock chip or not?

I looked up the board and then read over the datasheet for the southbridge.
The clock for date/time is integrated into the southbridge. it can operate two ways.

One is with an external clock crystal and the other is with a clock signal fed into the clock connections. From the pictures it looks like it is using an external clock crystal so there is no worries since that is used just for the RTC (real time clock) .

Here is a pic of how the clock probably works on that board.


http://i44.tinypic.com/zsldkx.jpg

I would keep it watched and after a week or so if it isn't losing any more time than a few seconds , it is probably the clock crystal being off just a bit. Worst case your clock loses time.

If you want to completely eliminate the battery as a cause, leave the pc on , as it doesn't use the battery at all with the power on.

Now if they had used the other method for clock control with the RTC, that could be serious since it is also the same circuits that generate the SATA clocks.

 

toyota

Lifer
Apr 15, 2001
12,957
1
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okay thanks for the help. it was strange that when I first got my pc it didnt lose any time that i noticed but after a couple weeks it started losing time rapidly. also unless I am crazy it was losing time before even while it was on.

EDIT: yep its losing time even while its on because i just lost another second.