PC Clock looses time 3

[bigbuzz]

Hello

The clock on my PC looses about an hour every week. I am always having to reset it.

My computer is about 3 years old, An HP 8575 750Mhz

Does anyone know why ?? If anyone can help it would be greatly appreciated.

bigbuzz

 

[ngagne]

The CMOS battery is dying. Open up the system and replace the battery(s) on the motherboard. HP should have a listing of what type of battery you need to get, or you can just look at what's in there and write down the information. Nate Gagne
nathan.gagne@verizon.net
AKA Nick Burns - Your Company's Computer Guy
"Would you like me to save your game of Minesweeper first?"

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[rjkrash]

Get that battery replaced and then make sure your computer is accurate!

You can get the time from a timeservice on the net to automatically reset your cpu time.

see the following for how to info:

http://www.boulder.nist.gov/timefreq/service/pdf/nts.pdf

The two rules for success are:
1. Never tell them everything you know.

If you found this post helpful click on the link below and vote for it. I want to win a coffee mug! s-)

 

[cdogg]

CMOS batteries should last at least 5 years unless defective (which is unlikely).

What operating system are you using? How often do you reboot your system?

The reason I'm asking is because Windows 95/98/ME all use a "software" clock that runs separate from the clock in the BIOS (RTC clock). This software clock only synchs with the RTC clock during bootup. If you don't reboot that often and are running low on resources in windows, it's not uncommon to lose a large amount of time on the software clock. Before you replace the battery, reboot your system next time you've noticed you've lost more than 5 minutes. See if it corrects itself after the reboot automatically. If it doesn't, then you probably have a bad battery.

Don't just take my word for it. Check out:

http://www.beaglesoft.com/mainfaqclock.htm

 

[ngagne]

We deal exclusively with HP systems at my work. We have about 800 in the field, and I have replaced batteries on many a system less than three years old.

Nate Gagne
nathan.gagne@verizon.net
AKA Nick Burns - Your Company's Computer Guy
"Would you like me to save your game of Minesweeper first?"

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[mosterhus]

One other thing to check, if you are logging on to a server it is likely that you could be getting your time from it. You may want to check and see if the server has the correct time or if anyone else is having this problem.

 

[cdogg]

mosterhus,
Good point, although it doesn't seem likely that the server would be an hour off, but it's possible.

ngagne,
With all due respect, I don't doubt that you've had problems on HP systems in the past. I've built and maintained dozens of pc's that are well over the 4 and 5 year mark still running on their original CMOS battery. I've never owned an HP, so maybe that's why I never noticed it to be a common problem on relatively new pc's. Perhaps the problem is with the brand of battery chosen by HP?

However, note this. If you leave your system on continuosly, whether the CMOS battery is good or not doesn't even matter. The operating system only synchs up with the RTC clock during the boot process. That's why I asked the user if he/she reboots the system daily. If she does, then it's the battery. If not, then it's her system running low on resources...

 

[ngagne]

Yes, that is also common problem. I wasn't trying to disprove the theroy. BIGBUZZ, I would take cdogg's advice and see if rebooting works. If not, replace the battery.

cdogg - great post. You earned a star! Nate Gagne
nathan.gagne@verizon.net
AKA Nick Burns - Your Company's Computer Guy
"Would you like me to save your game of Minesweeper first?"

Like my post? Let me know it was helpful!

 

[cdogg]

Thanks Nate. I realize that we all have different past experiences that influence our first notions. One specific example is that my company supports hundreds of Dell Latitude notebooks anywhere from 1-3 years old. All the ones with Windows 98 have conflicts with a version of Mcafee Virusscan on the system. It was draining system resources. This conflict was causing systems to lose anywhere from 5-15 minutes every hour, which of course had nothing to do with the CMOS battery.

Luckily, we received a patch from Mcafee that has resolved the problem...


~cdogg