Strange Windows Clock question

[DaWhYteDraGoN]

Lately, everythime my computer starts up, the clock in the bottom right corner will start out correct. The longer I leave it on, the firther it gets away from the actual time (it moves too fast). At this point, my computer has only been on for 2 hours and the time is over 10 minutes off. Is this a common problem? I am running windows XP home and I have never noticed anything like this before. I was thinking that it might be the CMOS battery, but it resets itself to the right time when I restart the computer...

 

[amdskip]

CMOS battery does nothing for it, it's just the gremlins in your computer messing with it.

 

[DaWhYteDraGoN]

Anything I can do about it?

 

[DaWhYteDraGoN]

Anybody?

 

[spyordie007]

I was thinking that it might be the CMOS battery, but it resets itself to the right time when I restart the computer...

Is your computer a domain member? If so that would explain this behavior since domain clients will sync their time with the domain controllers.

You might try looking for an updated BIOS, but I wouldnt hold my breath.

 

[Mark R]

Windows has the ability to adjust the clock's speed to keep the time 'accurate' when it is configured to sync to other servers - sometimes this goes a bit screwy.

Probably the easiest way to deal with the problem is to configure windows to resync its clock to an internet atomic clock on a regular basis. You can download loads of little programs that can do this, or you can get windows to do it (the stuff is built in already). The advantage of getting windows to do it, is that the automatic speed adjustment is also automatically configured, in case you don't connect to the internet for a while.

To activate the windows time sync open a 'command prompt window' and enter the following commands:
net stop "windows time"
net time /setsntp:tick.gpsclock.com
w32tm -once -period 65532
net start "windows time"

If typing all that in is too much effort then download and run this script, which will do it all automatically.

The command script above works on Windows 2000. I don't have XP, but it should work in exactly the same way. Once activated Windows will resync every 45 minutes, until it gets 3 good locks in a row - once stable it will switch to 3 times a day.