[370] in winnt
Re: loosing time
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Tom Fitzgerald)
Mon Jun 7 12:53:58 1999
Message-Id: <199906071653.MAA27573@SLIGO.MIT.EDU>
To: Kirky Ringer <kirky@ceci.mit.edu>
Cc: ntpartners@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 07 Jun 1999 11:06:15 EDT."
<4.1.19990607105552.01dac5c0@ceci.mit.edu>
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Date: Mon, 07 Jun 1999 12:53:41 EDT
From: Tom Fitzgerald <tfitz@MIT.EDU>
> We have 2 relatively new (Jan/Feb) Dell dimensions which arrived with
> Windows 98 installed that are loosing time consistently 5-10 minutes a day.
> The NT machine which came in about the same time doesn't seem to be
> experiencing the same time problem. Also, it doesn't seem to be happening
> on the new EMachine which also runs win98 but we have only had this machine
> a week or two.
>
> Has anyone else experienced time problems with win98 or dell machines?
Not with win98 or Dell in particular, but with all PCs, all OSs, for
the whole 20 years the PC has been around, yes. PC clock crystals are
just really cheaply made, and some are wildly inaccurate. The only fix
I know is to use software to adjust the clock regularly.
There's a good selection of time sync packages listed at:
http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~ntp/software.html
I've never used any of the Win9x ones, but at least one of them must
be worthwhile. The SNTP-based ones are probably the best ones to use
in the MIT environment.
As a general rule, if you've got a PC that's a few years old or more,
and the clock drifts wildly while it's turned _off_, then it's probably
time to replace the CMOS battery. But if it's new, or if it drifts
while it's turned on, it's a bad clock and there's no fixing it.
