System Time Slowing Down: How bad is this?

[the_querist]

I run Win98 right now on my system that is an Athlon 700 with PC-133 (128mb) on a K7V motherboard. I have noticed in the past week that my clock has been falling behind (the one on the taskbar in 98). In particular, this week it has fallen even further behind (total time behind is now 24 minutes - was reset about two weeks ago at most). I have yet to correct it b/c I want to see if it gets any worse. Do I need to replace the CMOS Battery, or could something else be causing this. I have also began to notice skips when listening to mp3's on Winamp - could this problem have arised from this as well? Would this affect other apps as well? Advice is appreciated.

 

[the_querist]

^bump^

 

[thorin]

Virus check lately?

Thorin

 

[hungrypete]

^ and a comment
now that is truly odd
seriously, virus check....
is the computer turned off most of the time?

 

[midnightrat]

Always remember KISS! Try the battery first and see if that fix's things. If it doesn't further troubleshooting is obviously required and your only out a few bux, but if it does fix it, how sweet it is.

 

[Kappo]

There are only 2 reasons why this would happen:
1)If there is something hogging all of your resources and windows cannot update the clock on a regular basis (this would be solved by rebooting and the time would be correct again). If this is the case (and you are skipping playing mp3's and other quirky problems so it is the most likley) then right click on My Computer and check the performance tab. See how much you have left in System resources (I like to keep mine above 90 on idle and above 70 on decent load). Also, check your startup and see if you have findfast in your startup. If you do, DELETE IT!

2)your onboard clock generator chip is bad. But I have actually never heard of one "going bad". The only time I have ever noticed it is when I first get the MB and it is already bad (can anyone say RMA?)

Hope this helps and feel free to shoot me a mail if you need anymore help!

 

[dkozloski]

I agree with midnightrat. When my machine slowed down a battery change was the immediate repair.

 

[RossGr]

I have noticed that none of my computers keep particulary good time. My solution, I went to the NIST web page and d/led a utility that sets my clock to the National standard time. I can do this in a few seconds with a couple of mouse clicks. Easy to do and my clocks are never off by more then a few seconds. Go here

edit (added link to NIST)