Problems with the clock on the pc

suppafly

So yeah, the clock keeps going wrong. Like it has the wrong time on it. I set it, and then in a few days or so, it is wrong again. Can anybody tell me some reaosn why this is happening and how to fix it? thanks

donaloconnor

Very simple conclusion to this, the battery on your main board is gone. not to worry you should be able to find these batterys around.

phreak

the same thing used to happen to me. it went on for a few months and i kept putting the time right but recently it has just stayed at the right time! strange?

donaloconnor

Maybe that you left the coomputer off for ages, and this forced to totally drain the battery. You see these batterys build a memory and don't bother recharging when the computer is on, but if its off long enough, this memory will be forced to drain. So next time u turn the computer on it will fully recharge again and there you go like a new battery.

Ok i've nothing to back this up but thats my opionion of what happened.

elexes

its not the battery cant b they dont recharge . most bats ull find on mobos are ment to last 5 years b4 changing . im not 100% sure whats going on are you giving your computer big shocks or taking out the bat a lot ?

_CreeD_

Yes they do Elexes. They just wear out after a few years too, i.e. won't take a charge anymore.

There was also a bug in Win9x that caused it to slowly lose time on most systems. There's a patch for it I think. Do a search at www.microsoft.com/technet if that's your OS'

PPC

Its usually the battery but it could be a piece of software aswell.
The clock on one of the pc's in work used to drop an hour if ya changed it.
We found out it was taking the time off the server.

Saruman

Try it in the bios without going into windows at all... If its only a bit of software then this can fix it... as for a battery lasting 5 - 7 years is the norm but it can be drained quicker sometimes. Still a battery is the least likely option i reckon.

suppafly

Originally posted by elexes
its not the battery cant b they dont recharge . most bats ull find on mobos are ment to last 5 years b4 changing . im not 100% sure whats going on are you giving your computer big shocks or taking out the bat a lot ?

I haven't been taking out the battery or been giving it shocks. The computer is only a couple months old, so i the battery couldn't have ran out by now. Is it a bug with XP or something mabye?

donaloconnor

Correction -> The PC is new, but the maker of the PC might have placed a old motherboard in it. Ok im only guessing here Sorry if i'm judging ur pc wrong. What is the date on the Bios at startup, that might give u an idea, even thuogh it could be flashed.

BTBB

We got a computer in 1990 and replaced the battery in 1994(aprox.) Remembering its an AT power supply and that the battery is still fine says something.

Now the dry theory:
In order to increase the speed at which the current time can be retrieved it is transfered from the BIOS to DOS(or equivilent). There it is updated every second or whatever.

The problem occurs when you use processor intensive programs(e.g. video editing) and they 'slow' the clock by delaying the time update.

This should only cause a tiny discrepancy, certainly no more than a few second every day but a bad OS could explain it.

I'm for a bad battery or a motherboard that is draining a bit too much power from the battery.

BTBB

donaloconnor

I never knew that the processor was involved with the clock?

byte

Originally posted by suppafly
So yeah, the clock keeps going wrong. Like it has the wrong time on it. I set it, and then in a few days or so, it is wrong again. Can anybody tell me some reaosn why this is happening and how to fix it? thanks

I get this too. Strangely today, my clock had lost 3 hours. Now it can't be the battery as the PC hasn't been switched off in over 36 hours. It only loses hours. If it were battery I would expect it to go back to midnight 00.00 or 12.00.

donaloconnor

hmm software problem. i also had a strange problem. when i done a scan of the satellite frequencys with my dvb card the time would go to the year 2009 lol

byte

Originally posted by donaloconnor
hmm software problem. i also had a strange problem. when i done a scan of the satellite frequencys with my dvb card the time would go to the year 2009 lol

Well the only thing running on my PC when it lost 3 hours was Europe Online, NAV and Zone Alarm. Maybe my EON had something to do with it?

donaloconnor

Well its the Skyserver that does it. That software acts very strange sometimes. I'm using Win XP

suppafly

so to summarise your solutions, u think i should check the bios. How do i do this?

sutty

Ok, I really have to laugh at this, has anyone even tryed to say..

Go into the bios.....on alot of bios it is pressing delete when the computer is starting up..ie: scaning the memory, if different it will say so on the screen, once in the bios, take a look at the clock seting in there, if it is set wrong in there, the OS will also usethe wrong time. Set it to the right time and then press F10 or what the bios says to press to save and exit......then if needed set the time right in the OS and make sure the time zone is set to GMT...

Saruman

Eh thing about it is we are assuming he has an ok computer.. if he has a piece of muck Compaq he is screwed.. no bios access on it.. uses some silly boot disk thing.

Usually on an AMD board its delete,
On a few Intel based boards its F1 or F2.. your screen will tell you or your motherboard manual. If you dont know then try holding as many keys on your keyboard down (sit on it) and you should get a stuck key error and it might tell you press esc to resume and whatever key it is to get into bios to setup.