Clock

[guest_Heather]

My clock in the task bar seems to lose time, any suggestions what the problem is and what i need to do to rectify it?
Thanks

[Guest]

Originally posted by guest_Heather@Mar 22 2005, 03:56 AM
My clock in the task bar seems to lose time, any suggestions what the problem is and what i need to do to rectify it?
Thanks

have you had any other problems ? you may well find your motherboard battery is in need of changing, how much time does the clock lose and how often.

[locustfurnace]

You system loosing time, is very common.
You can install a Freeware Time synchronizer app, which will fetch the atomic time, and sync your clock. This will help with your time drift.

Automachron (pron. ah-TAW-ma-kron) is a freeware SNTP client - Simple Network Time Protocol - for synchronizing your computer's time with an NTP server.

NetTime
is a simple time synchronization client for Windows 95/98/NT/2000. Its main claim to fame is that it is small, simple and unobtrusive. And, of course, it's free software.

[Guest]

losing time is very common ? common to who ? never had the problem with any pc ive owned built or repaired

[locustfurnace]

Very common. Otherwise, there would not be a need for NTP protocol. NTP version 3 is an internet draft standard, formalized in RFC 1305.

Most computers include a quartz resonator-stabilized oscillator and hardware counter that interrupts the processor at intervals of a few milliseconds. At each interrupt, a quantity called tick is added to a system variable representing the clock time. The clock can be read by system and application programs and set on occasion to an external reference. Once set, the clock readings increment at a nominal rate, depending on the value of tick. Typical Unix system kernels provide a programmable mechanism to increase or decrease the value of tick by a small, fixed amount in order to amortize a given time adjustment smoothly over multiple tick intervals.

Clock errors are due to variations in network delay and latencies in computer hardware and software (jitter), as well as clock oscillator instability (wander). The time of a client relative to its server can be expressed

T(t) = T(t0) + R(t - t0) + 1/2 D(t - t0)2,

where t is the current time, T is the time offset at the last measurement update t0, R is the frequency offset and D is the drift due to resonator ageing. All three terms include systematic offsets that can be corrected and random variations that cannot. Some protocols, including DTSS, estimate only the first term in this expression, while others, including NTP, estimate the first two terms. Errors due to the third term, while important to model resonator aging in precision applications, are neglected, since they are usually dominated by errors in the first two terms.

By its very nature, clock synchronization is a continuous process, resulting in a sequence of measurements with each of possibly several servers and resulting in a clock adjustment.

[Guest]

regardless of all the spiel you dribble out what your saying is pc manufacturers build and sell systems for hundreds and even thousands of dollars yet cannot fit a reliable system ? yeah right

[Guest]

Originally posted by Guest@Mar 24 2005, 01:58 PM
regardless of all the spiel you dribble out what your saying is pc manufacturers build and sell systems for hundreds and even thousands of dollars yet cannot fit a reliable system ? yeah right

clock system that is

[locustfurnace]

Originally posted by Guest@Mar 24 2005, 01:58 PM
regardless of all the spiel you dribble out what your saying is pc manufacturers build and sell systems for hundreds and even thousands of dollars yet cannot fit a reliable system ? yeah right

Yet, Microsoft, spends billions of dollars and has the most insecure OS on the market? and the most unstable OS as well. How could that be?
Cellular phone company's spend billions of dollars on wireless systems, yet voice quality is terrible, but, how could this be?

Pc makers make desktop PC's, they are not making mission critical systems, so these choices for a clock system, does pass their expectations, and does not need to be any better than what it currently is.
These desktop PC's are not used in life support systems. Quality needs only meet desktop PC levels, not the same expectations one would get with a heart monitor.
Microsoft, does not make heart monitor OS's either. Nor do they make an operating system which is used in life critical appliances. Microsoft is just too unreliable.
If Microsoft's OS was used in Airport control centers, not many people would be trusting their life's to such a airline.

[Pete]

Back to the original subject.

It depends on how much time you're loosing. If it's only a few seconds (or less) a day, a sycronizing utility, like locustfurnace recommended, could be considered routine maintenance. How often you use it, depends on how critical the correct time is to your activities.

If you're loosing something in the order of minutes (or more) per day, Your C-MOS battery may be failing (as discussed by the first "guest" reply). If so, it may be advisable to replace the battery before you lose your BIOS.

[Guest]

Originally posted by Pete@Mar 24 2005, 05:53 PM
Back to the original subject.

It depends on how much time you're loosing. If it's only a few seconds (or less) a day, a sycronizing utility, like locustfurnace recommended, could be considered routine maintenance. How often you use it, depends on how critical the correct time is to your activities.

If you're loosing something in the order of minutes (or more) per day, Your C-MOS battery may be failing (as discussed by the first "guest" reply). If so, it may be advisable to replace the battery before you lose your BIOS.

pete, thankyou so much at least i was not the only one to realise the most probable cause of the problem which is far more important than a time sync utility is to change that battery its worth changing if there is the slightest chance it may fail and lose your bios settings as with many other things people do not have screen shots and backups of these kind of things and settings and as they are far beyond the scope of most pc users then its obvious the battery change is a first worthwhile thing to do.