PC clock weirdly misbehaving

(If this is not in the right forum, please move the post.)

I would like to know what factors can affect a computer (ordinary PC) clock.

Here's the thing: some ten days ago, I noticed that the clock on my PC (three years old, Win XP, 2.00 GHz, 786 RAM, no noticeable malfunction) had somehow gone 10 minutes "ahead".
I noticed it because all the news broadcasts I watch - BBC, CNN, SKY etc. (their timing is more or less "synchronised", of course) - seemed to suddenly start ten minutes "late" compared to my PC clock. I made it a point of monitoring this discrepancy for an entire day: sure enough, my PC really was 10 minutes "ahead".

And that's not all: a day or two after I had noticed this (I did NOT reset the settings after noticing it, because I was curious about this and didn't want to change anything until I had figured out what had happened), the clock went back to the same accurate time-keeping that it had before. (Again, I noticed it by comparing the time with the start of the news broadcasts mentioned above: now they were starting "on time".)

Now, anyone using a PC will know that it is virtually impossible to reset the clock "by accident". It simply cannot be done. (Even if you were to tinker with the clock settings - which I did NOT do - you would still have to "confirm" it for the new setting to take effect.)

As I said, I never touched the clock settings. I am the only person with access to this PC. I haven't had any malfunction, certainly not noticeable. The RAM is more than enough for my usage. No virus or other malware has ever been found in my PC. (I have three protection programs installed and run them simultaneously, but occasionally also run the PC Pitstop full test, House Call and certain other scanners, just in case.) I always turn the PC off when I am not working. There were no power outages in the period described.

Does anyone have any idea of what could have caused this?



[edit on 13-1-2008 by Vanitas]

i have not experienced a time discrepency; however, for several days i received emails dated 2038.

Originally posted by musselwhite
i have not experienced a time discrepency; however, for several days i received emails dated 2038.

It's called a "Spam".

Originally posted by Vanitas


Does anyone have any idea of what could have caused this?



[edit on 13-1-2008 by Vanitas]

Sounds like you need a new battery. Yes, there is a replaceable battery on your motherboard. It is used to hold cmos information.

reply to post by musselwhite




And in certain documents I downloaded a while ago the "last changes" are dated 1980 and 1967, respectively.

reply to post by pavlovsdog


Thank you very much, Pavlovsdog. That's very useful info.

But still... would that explain that the clock went right back after a few days, all on its own accord?

My windows clock is also out of sync. My computer is brand new less then a year old. And the time goes off by about 5 minutes.

Have you disabled the windows time synchronization in your windows services?
This is a service that pings an atomic clock online to keep your time in sync.
I have this service disabled to free resources this is why mine is off.

reply to post by TheoOne


Giggle! Hey, i'm sharp on a few things and a moron on others. your post was good for a laugh and i'm going to ad it too my many tales of getting old! thanks and o, i deleted those. i figured there were from somewhere in the future and i'm just trying to figure out today!

Note to add:

Shouldn't this be in the computer help forum not science and technology?

reply to post by CPYKOmega


I found that the synchronization service speeds the time forward for me. So it's 10-15 minutes ahead of what it should be.

Stupid Microsoft...

reply to post by Vanitas


okay, now i'm getting curious. do you mean documents you typed then printed?

reply to post by musselwhite


No problem at all, mate - I felt it needed to be stated so the confusion could be vanished in no time.

In fact, it really would make you think if they were the actual emails from the actual future.

[edit on 13-1-2008 by TheoOne]

I'll tell you what can cause radical clock behaviour. Or any kind of weird computer behaviour.
It's called Microsoft Windows. Which they recently downgraded to Windows Vista.

reply to post by CPYKOmega


Which is exactly why I preceded my post with the relevant remark.

I didn't know there was a "Computer Help" forum - and I certainly didn't notice it. (And when one's time is limited - because I am not writing this at home - the layout CAN be a bit of a maze to navigate...)

Originally posted by Vanitas


But still... would that explain that the clock went right back after a few days, all on its own accord?

yes. I've had it happen personally. But I'll follow up with this question to make sure. Do you turn your computer off nightly or do you run it 24/7

reply to post by abovetech


I am no fan of Microsoft myself... No way.

I am no tech guru but it could be the first signs of a battery failure and or the RTC chip, due to excessive dust across components or the battery itself that powers the RTC chip.

What is the PC’s Real Time Clock? Every IBM PC compatible computer features a battery-backed "Real Time Clock (RTC)" chip. This contains a 32768 Hz crystal oscillator that drives a date/time counter. It also contains 114 bytes of battery-backed CMOS RAM that are reserved for BIOS use. The chip typically used is compatible to the Dallas Semiconductor DS1287 and Motorola MC146818B RTCs.

Source

Worth looking into if the PC Clock acts up again.

reply to post by pavlovsdog


I turn it off every night (except when I WORK all night... ) and whenever I anticipate a long absence from the PC.

Been doing that for many years - never any problems.

Thanks!

Possibly your bios battery is going. Possibly DO have bugs, the 2 "protections" you mentioned sound dodgy, for maximum speed and accuracy, run 1 of each---firewall (comodo) anti-virus (AVG) and anti-spy (spybot search and destroy) all freeware. Uninstall all others, not just delete the shortcuts, from the "add remove programs" in the control panel.

Run a cleanup tool (I prefer wintools.net) after uninstalling to clean files and registry entries, makes a system much faster getting rid of left over junk.

You can switch your default time server to a more accurate one---I use nist instead of the default microsoft one, and the frequency of updates. (I use daily, close enough for me.)

The telly isn't really an accurate timepiece. check the atomic clock. (I have a watch that resets to atomic time 4 times a day)

Though I mentioned these 4 programs, you can use which ever you wish, but only 1 of each class. But these are the ones I recommend to all my customers.

DISCLAIMER: I am not affiliated with any of these companies, but find their free products worthy of consideration.

reply to post by Freelancer


OK, thanks very much - very interesting info!