Clock Keeps Going Back Exactly 20 Minutes?

mbentley said:

it depends on the OS i believe. for example, i had one of my linux systems to sync the operating system time with the bios on boot and on shutdown, it resyncs the time to the bios so that when the system is shut down, the bios has an accurate time.

but i am not aware of windows working that way, however, i could be wrong.

Click to expand...

Smoothwall is linux based, NC6000 was XP until Tuesday, both XP and Mint would set the time according to the BIOS.

I can check my two other XP rigs to see if they do it as well.

Foxie3a said:

I have a new warning in the event viewer that I haven't seen before.



I found a thread that seems very similar to my problem, but I don't have an account at that site.

http://www.experts-exchange.com/OS/Microsoft_Operating_Systems/Windows/Windows_Vista/Q_23156192.html

Any ideas? I'm thinking about formatting and reinstalling Windows. If that doesn't correct it, maybe consider my hardware clock defective?

Click to expand...

you don't need an experts exchange account to view the answers. just click on the "cached" version in google.

http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache...ista/Q_23156192.html&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

and here is the "accepted solution" on the site:

briancassin:
If you ping time-nw.nist.gov there is no reply I don't think that time server is operating or they are rejecting ICMP

try setting it to time.nist.gov I was able to ping this with no issue

if that does not work
try also this procedure

Code:

net stop w32time
w32tm /unregister [ignore error message]
w32tm /unregister [enter a second time]
w32tm /register
reg add hklm\system\currentcontrolset\services\w32time\parameters\ /v NtpServer /t reg_sz /d time.nist.gov /f
net start w32time
w32tm /resync

And then restart.

Click to expand...

and no, it isn't a defective hardware clock. it is your time source that is not correct. whatever the source is that your computer is trying to sync from has an incorrect time.

Why is it syncing the time so frequently? It says the next sync isn't until 5/1/09, but I can assure you that within the next 12 hours it'll be out of sync by a significant amount.

time.windows.com is the server it is syncing with, and when I manually sync it after it's turned incorrect, it goes to the correct time with the same server. It sure doesn't feel like time.windows.com is wrong and messing up my time.

Still having the problem... Here is a little update.

This is so confusing for me because I can't tell what time events are logged in the event viewer. I'm not sure, but it looks like the system might really know what time it is, and is only showing a wrong time on the clock in the corner.

Event viewer has 3 events all within the same second. Event 6013, reporting the uptime. Within the same second, it says:

The system time has changed to 5/1/2009 8:04:03 PM from 5/1/2009 8:04:03 PM.

Click to expand...

Then, the next entry, within the same second, says:

The system time has changed to 5/1/2009 8:04:03 PM from 5/1/2009 6:56:16 PM.

Click to expand...

The funny thing is, the log time, on all 3 of these is:

5/1/2009 1:04:03 PM

Click to expand...

That is the correct time, but the events are reporting wrong times, and... bah, I'm lost.

Just while writing this, my clock lost 10 minutes, and I have new events appearing as I'm writing. Entries look very similar, two of them saying the time is adjusted, but none of the times it's adjusted to or from are the correct time. Both were reported in the same second, and both have a logged time that is actually correct.

Then, exactly 10 seconds after those, there are two unrelated entries at the same time.

DCOM started the service TrustedInstaller with arguments "" in order to run the server:
{752073A1-23F2-4396-85F0-8FDB879ED0ED}

Click to expand...

The Windows Modules Installer service entered the running state.

Click to expand...

Any ideas? Thanks!

i have had this problem before, never could solve it....wish i could provide more help...

well, yes, i did solve it, got a new MB and never looked back....

tried for months to get it to work properly....

maybe you will find a solution....this annoyance drove me nuts.....

good luck...

laterzzzzzzz,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Any chance you could reinstall the operating system as a last resort to see if that solves the issue?

Update: I started having some hard drive issues.. drives kept failing, so it wasn't the drives. I came to the conclusion that the backplane, of all things, was creating problems. I lost my Windows array after the backplane failed 3 drives in that array simultaneously. After performing the repairs, and reinstalling Windows, I have not had a single clock issue, and I run all of the same software and drivers.

i'm not sure if it was a fluke corruption of Windows, or whatever else, but now the problem is resolved. It looks like a format and reinstall did the job well. I doubt we could have ever fixed it without reinstalling, but thank you to everyone for helping me try!

IIRC, you need to make sure the firewall is allowing SVCHOST.EXE to connect.

It needs at least access to port 123!