Laptop Clock

Custardpi

Hi there, just wanted to get some advice on what's probably a minor issue but one which I'm worried may be a symptom of something more serious. A while back I noticed that the clock on my laptop was running a couple of minutes slower than those on my other devices. Not thinking too much of it I checked timeanddate.com & reset it to the correct GMT time. Within a few days however it had slowed down & was again a couple of minutes behind the correct time. Tried resetting it a few times since with same result after a few days.

The laptop hasn't been involved in any close to light-speed travel or other activity which would account for time dilation so I'm at a loss to explain what's going on. It's not a major issue in itself but I'm worried that it may reflect some element of my system running slower than it should which could be a sign of a bigger problem. What do ye reckon?

Khannie

How old is the laptop? Could be the bios battery on its way out.

Custardpi

Bought in mid 2008. Is that a serious problem? If so, what's the best solution?

brianwalshcork

All computer clocks drift if they are not corrected frequently.
If your computers connected to a domain (most likely for work computer, not for your home laptop) then the time is automatically synchronized with a domain controller which in turn is sync'ed with an external time source so everything keeps the correct time.
For your laptop, you could setup a free NTP client which will get the time from an external source and correct your clock automatically for you.

Brian

Khannie

Custardpi wrote: »

Bought in mid 2008. Is that a serious problem? If so, what's the best solution?

If it is the bios battery then it's not usually a big problem. You just buy a new one and replace it. As said, an NTP client will fix the problem for you by constantly fixing any drift. There are public NTP servers in Ireland.

bonzodog2

I find http://nettime.sourceforge.net/ useful.

yoyo

Do you get any errors such as checksum error on startup? usually if the BIOs battery dies you'll get such a message usually. Also make sure the obvious checks are made such as the correct region is specified in Control Panel>Region and Language settings. Windows pulls the time automatically from Microsoft servers, so it may be pulling the time for another region,

Nick

MarkR

This might help you keep it as accurate as possible.

http://lifehacker.com/5828311/change-windows-clock-update-settings-to-avoid-losing-minutes-every-week