Vista 64 loosing time

[The Borg]

Hi all,

Not sure what the issue is but I have recently noticed that my Vista 64 machine is loosing time. About 10-min per day. I use the time update to synchronise and about 24 hours later, the clock is back by about 10-min.

Any ideas?

Very weird.

 

[The Keeper]

Does this happen while your computer is turned on or off? If off, it is probably your motherboard CMOS battery that has dried up. If on, see what server you are synchronizing time from if any, it can be found in date and time settings.

 

[drebo]

Interesting...I'm not all that sure that the use of "loosing" is all that incorrect in this instance, because it's definitely evident that Vista's idea of time is "looser" than it should be...

Hah.

 

[The Borg]

I cruch 24/7 with my machines. Had thought of that, but with the machine on all the time, it cannot be the CMOS battery.

I have the defualt setting of 'time.windows.com' as the server. I have to manually sync and then the times comes right.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: The Borg
I have the defualt setting of 'time.windows.com' as the server.

I don't think this is your problem, but, in my experience, "time.windows.com" is unreliable as a time server. Use one of the U.S. Government time servers like time-a.nist.gov. Also, make sure that Windows Time Service is running on your PC.

 

[nerp]

You can also increase the update frequency so it synchs every six hours or so instead of weekly.

Just look in regedit for the "pollinterval" setting or whatnot under the W32Time section. You'll see it. It's in seconds, so do the quick math and you'll get it sorted.

I had a mobo that just refused to keep time in synch and if I was OCing it would be exaggerated even more. I set it to synch every six hours and it was never more than a minute off after that point.

 

[Aberforth]

Your CMOS battery leaks, it will eventually lose all the bios settings, replace it...just in case.

 

[The Borg]

Guys, it is loosing time between updates. A different update server is not going to solve the problem I have with my PC under Vista.

 

[RebateMonger]

I had a 386 motherboard that did this. It'd lose vast amounts of time and would sometimes lose all the CMOS settings on boot. A replacement motherboard fixed it. Constantly replacing the four AA cells that powered the CMOS didn't seem to help.

 

[Smilin]

This would be a hardware problem.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Smilin
This would be a hardware problem.

Could be, buggy drivers have been known to cause it as well.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: Smilin
This would be a hardware problem.

I'd start by checking the hardware clock:

1) Boot to BIOS and set the time to NIST. Turn off the PC. Boot to BIOS the next morning and compare the time to NIST.
2) Boot to BIOS and set the time to NIST. Let the PC run overnight and compare the time to NIST.

 

[Smilin]

A dos boot disk and a machine left on overnight would be a useful test as well. It would take both the OS and drivers out of the picture.

 

[programmer]

Your firewall is probably blocking the port(s) for updating time from the NIST server.

 

[Smilin]

Even so, it shouldn't drift that far.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: Smilin
Even so, it shouldn't drift that far.

Yeah, that's a horrendous drift. Something is seriously wrong with the clock system.