After updating UEFI BIOS time is continually wrong

[Thentilian]

Interesting little issue I have. I recently updated my BIOS to 0812 from Asus for my Asus Prime X370-Pro motherboard. I noticed the other day my time was way off. Like over 2 hours and some odd minutes behind. I went into time and updated it. I've tried setting the auto daylight savings time, and have the proper time zone, etc... it just randomly falls behind at some point. I haven't even noticed exactly when it happens or if the numbers just change all at once of if the clock just freezes.

I did notice that Windows Time service was set to 'manual' instead of 'automatic'. I changed this to automatic. Anyone else having this issue? Just seems very odd after a BIOS update for this kind of thing to happen. I have a new install of Windows 10, which is about 3 weeks old now. No viruses, or malware. I just don't get this. Hopefully it'll right itself, because it's pretty annoying.

 

[Thentilian]

The clock lost 6 minutes today... Although I don't know if it had refreshed during the night while I was stress testing it with P95. I rebooted to check the time in the BIOS and it was off by 8 minutes... So, I'm not sure what is going on with the time on my PC. I changed the time in the BIOS and when I rebooted windows also had the correct time. Although, I do not know if windows auto-updates the time on startup or not. I even changed the time server from windows to the government time, and I'm still losing time.

The PC is already 10 to 20 seconds behind my cable box and cell phone. both of which, are always reading the same time, so I know it's the PC, and not my cell phone time that is falling behind. I think I'll send an email to Asus and see what they have to say about this odd issue. Doesn't seem to mess with anything, just annoying at this point on a new build to have something as simple as the clock go all wonky.

 

[EarthDog]

Windows initially pulls from the bios, so it makes sense it's right getting into windows. Auto daylight savings wouldnt matter..thats a twice a year adjustment.

Can you change time servers in the options?? Malware? Not quite stable overclock? Could be anything.

 

[WhitehawkEQ]

You can download http://www.thinkman.com/Dimension 4, you can set it up to update once ever sec, min, hour or day (set for 24 hours). I don't know if it will work in Win 10 but you can try it.
All though if having to set Dimension 4 to update every few sec or 1 min, then you need to go back to old BIOS or get Asus to find a way to fix it.
I use Dimension 4 on some of my older PC's and it's great

 

[Thentilian]

Windows initially pulls from the bios, so it makes sense it's right getting into windows. Auto daylight savings wouldnt matter..thats a twice a year adjustment.

Can you change time servers in the options?? Malware? Not quite stable overclock? Could be anything.

This is a two week old install of Windows, and no Malware or anything like that on it. My OC of 3.9Ghz has been subjected to 16 hours over 2 sessions of P95 without a hitch, so I'm doubtful it's that. I also did change time servers, and still the same issue. Maybe the CMOS battery is lose. I'll check that out tomorrow. Too tired tonight after working out to mess with it. Just want to play some games or watch Netflix and pass out.

You can download http://www.thinkman.com/Dimension 4, you can set it up to update once ever sec, min, hour or day (set for 24 hours). I don't know if it will work in Win 10 but you can try it.
All though if having to set Dimension 4 to update every few sec or 1 min, then you need to go back to old BIOS or get Asus to find a way to fix it.
I use Dimension 4 on some of my older PC's and it's great
View attachment 193412

That's a cool program, but it's just a work-around until the issue is fixed. It's just an annoyance at this point, and doesn't seem to affect anything else on my PC. I do not have any time sensitive schedules set up, I just thought it was interesting and annoying that the clock is losing time.

I'll just send an email to Asus and see if they know what's up. If it's a BIOS bug, I'm sure I'm not the only one it's done this too on the latest build. Thanks for the replies.

Oh yeah, it's 9:33pm and my clock is already over 45 minutes behind... it's saying 8:45pm... it literally has only moved 1 minute the past 5 to 10 while I was reading and writing this stuff.

EDIT: Out of curiosity I went back to BIOS 0810, and the clock was off by over an hour this morning. So, whatever this is, it's probably not the BIOS. Now I'm even more annoyed. I've noticed some wonkiness being back on this BIOS version, so I'll probably go back to 0812 since my PC was perfectly stable with that BIOS.

 

[Thentilian]

Asus responded to my email. They said to clear CMOS and change out the battery if that doesn't work... As if I didn't already clear the CMOS.. I haven't changed the battery yet, since this is a brand new board, I highly doubt it's the battery. It's not loose in the socket either. The PC shouldn't be losing time while it's on either, since the battery only keeps that information while the PC is off. I don't get why the PC is losing time while actively on. Maybe the motherboard is somehow defective... if I can't find a resolution and nothing else seems affected I guess it's something I'll just have to deal with.

 

[trents]

Why not RMA the board?

 

[petteyg359]

You can download http://www.thinkman.com/Dimension 4, you can set it up to update once ever sec, min, hour or day (set for 24 hours). I don't know if it will work in Win 10 but you can try it.
All though if having to set Dimension 4 to update every few sec or 1 min, then you need to go back to old BIOS or get Asus to find a way to fix it.
I use Dimension 4 on some of my older PC's and it's great
View attachment 193412

That application looks like a horrible abuse of NTP. You're never to supposed to connect directly to specific hosts. Specific hosts can screw up just like OP's system. That's why there are pool servers (though using vendor pools is even better than the raw geographic pools).

 

[Thentilian]

Why not RMA the board?

Ugh, I'd be without a PC for a while. I don't know if it's even worth the time. I do have an extended warranty through Micro Center, I could probably drive over to them and just swap the board... I've been noticing another issue. Seems the DIMM slots are touchy on this board. My PC didn't want to turn on a couple of times and only did so after reseating the RAM. I don't know why they are doing that. I have built a lot of PCs and fixed quite a few for friends, and never encountered this issue before either... which is kind of funny that I used to read a lot of posts about DIMM slots on Asus boards giving issues for people.

So if that keeps being an issue that's definitely going to get an RMA or swapped with Micro Center depending on what they say. I'd rather drive and replace it then wait 2 to 4 weeks for another board to show up in the mail... or worse yet, have Asus say nothing is wrong with it and send the same board back, and waste money on shipping.

That application looks like a horrible abuse of NTP. You're never to supposed to connect directly to specific hosts. Specific hosts can screw up just like OP's system. That's why there are pool servers (though using vendor pools is even better than the raw geographic pools).

I hadn't planned on using that, since it would be a band-aid anyways. I want to fix the issue, not cover it up. Currently it's 10:40am and my PC is saying it's 8:10am... seems to lose more time while turned off, but it's so odd to pin down. Even as it's on during the day it keeps losing time... so it's not a power issue, time should be fine while the PC is powered on. Then it'll auto-update once every 6 to 12 hours, whatever windows has for updating, then it'll slowly lose time again even with the PC on all day and night.

 

[petteyg359]

Have you tried changing the time sync server to some other source?

Have you tried:

w32tm /debug /disable
w32tm /unregister
w32tm /register
net start w32time

Reading here, it suggests Windows might only synchronize time once per week. ntpd on Linux, in contrast, has a default minimum-maximum of 64-1024 seconds, so will update your clock (if it has drifted) somewhere between once every minute to once every 17 minutes.

If you have AMD Overdrive installed, some Googling suggests that may be at fault, and that uninstalling, rebooting, then reinstalling it may fix it.

If you haven't replaced the battery, do try that. For random curiosity, check what the 3.3v line on your PSU is doing. AFAIK, the clock is running off that 3.3v line, and if there's weird crap going on with the power source, the hardware clock is going to get funky. Not sure how often Windows syncs software to hardware clock though, or which direction it does it in, or if it even has a separate software clock, so that could be irrelevant

 

[Thentilian]

Have you tried changing the time sync server to some other source?

Have you tried:

w32tm /debug /disable
w32tm /unregister
w32tm /register
net start w32time

Reading here, it suggests Windows might only synchronize time once per week. ntpd on Linux, in contrast, has a default minimum-maximum of 64-1024 seconds, so will update your clock (if it has drifted) somewhere between once every minute to once every 17 minutes.

If you have AMD Overdrive installed, some Googling suggests that may be at fault, and that uninstalling, rebooting, then reinstalling it may fix it.

If you haven't replaced the battery, do try that. For random curiosity, check what the 3.3v line on your PSU is doing. AFAIK, the clock is running off that 3.3v line, and if there's weird crap going on with the power source, the hardware clock is going to get funky. Not sure how often Windows syncs software to hardware clock though, or which direction it does it in, or if it even has a separate software clock, so that could be irrelevant

I did have AMD Ryzen Master installed, but I've been doing everything in BIOS, forgot it was even installed. I now have it uninstalled. Hopefully that'll fix up any issues I'm having... but I kind of doubt it. I checked the CMOS battery using a digital multi-meter and it was fine. I'm not sure how I would check the 3.3v line on a PSU?

I have set the time server from windows.time to the government one, made no difference. I will try that command line as well and see what happens, thanks.

EDIT: did it and got this... don't think it worked now it says service deleted...

 

[Mr.Scott]

Realtime clock skew.
Is HPET turned on?

 

[Thentilian]

Realtime clock skew.
Is HPET turned on?

Didn't see options for it in the BIOS... does it need to be on? Wait, didn't AMD Ryzen Master need it to be on to work? I just uninstalled that software, as I do all my tweaking in BIOS. I just disabled it Via command line, thanks. let's see what happens with that off.

EDIT: PC is already 4 minutes behind and I can't use windows time to correct it anymore since those commands by pettyg359 ended up deleting that service... so now I have to figure out how to get that service back and working. At least I solved the RAM issue today (I hope). I was able to register Windows Time service again after a restart... so that's fixed.

Another EDIT: Ok, so I went into the registry to check windows time configs and compared them to windows defaults listed by Microsoft. A couple of entries were missing... not sure if they were taken out by Windows 10 or not, but I added them and changed 1 value, that said something odd: UtilizeSslTimeData Post Windows 10 build 1511 Entry of 1 indicates that the W32Time will use multiple SSL timestamps to Seed a clock that is grossly inaccurate.

I'm not sure what that means, but since I was having a 'grossly inaccurate' time, I set the value to zero. So far after restarting the computer my PC time has stayed accurate. I'll update later if that changes.

WELL, that didn't take long. one sec the time was fine, the next it was 14 minutes behind... Might just return this motherboard since I'm also having issues with the DIMM slots. First Asus board and they aren't impressing me very much right now.

 

[trents]

I'd like to offer this peace of advice in response to your comments about not wanting to RMA the board because it would leave you without a computer for two weeks. That is, you need to accumulate a stash of backup parts so this won't happen. You don't have to have expensive backup components but even if you have a budget board, PSU, memory, etc. in reserve it will work for temporary and also give you parts to test with.

 

[Thentilian]

I'd like to offer this peace of advice in response to your comments about not wanting to RMA the board because it would leave you without a computer for two weeks. That is, you need to accumulate a stash of backup parts so this won't happen. You don't have to have expensive backup components but even if you have a budget board, PSU, memory, etc. in reserve it will work for temporary and also give you parts to test with.

Well, this is a new platform and I upgraded from a Phenom II 965. I gave that board and CPU to my mom. I do have PSU and other parts, but they are even older than the AM3 platform. And I have a lot of stuff on this PC's hard drives I need. Going through the trouble of setting one of those up isn't something I want to do.

So, not much testing I could do anyways, since DDR4 only works on this board and I don't have spare DDR4 laying around or spare 3xx series AM4 motherboards kicking around either. I shouldn't have to RMA it anyways, I bought an extended warranty with Micro Center, so they can replace it. Just have to drive 100 miles to the store to do that. I live out in the desert of California, so not any good PC shops near by and I didn't want to order online because prices were so much cheaper to just buy from Micro Center, even with gas cost factored in.

 

[mammut]

Is the PSU connected to the mains 24/7, not cut off periodically by e.g using a power strip?
If it is, and the battery for some reason is a dud, the clock will stall.
The other thing to try is run all settings at stock in BIOS(ie no OC).

Trying with another CR2032 battery is a very simple test before beginning a RMA procedure.
Check also that you have the date correct(BIOS&OS), if it is way off, windows time service will fail to synchronize.

 

[Thentilian]

Is the PSU connected to the mains 24/7, not cut off periodically by e.g using a power strip?
If it is, and the battery for some reason is a dud, the clock will stall.
The other thing to try is run all settings at stock in BIO(ie no OC).

Trying with another CR2032 battery is a very simple test before beginning a RMA procedure.
Check also that you have the date correct(BIOS&OS), if it is way off, windows time service will fail to synchronize.

I have run my PC through a surge protector for years before. still using the same one. Although this one is old and I probably should replace it.

I haven't bought another CR2032 battery because I tested the one from the motherboard. It was putting out juice when tested with my multimeter.

On another note, I think I found something that was also an issue... The Q-connector for the front power, LED, etc. It was loose and causing the problem of the power and reset switch to not work. I removed the connector and plugged directly to the motherbord. The PC has been firing up just fine.

I'm including a short video as I noticed the clock this morning in the BIOS was 12:30AM so I set it manually, but while on that page I noticed it was hanging every 6 or 7 seconds for longer than it should.

 

[trents]

Is the bios chip removable or is it soldered to the board?

 

[ihrsetrdr]

I saw your video- how strange! Send the video link to the Asus customer service, see what they have to say.

Did you update the UEFI BIOS for a specific feature that you wanted or needed? If the update wasn't a 'fix' or improvement maybe try rolling back the update.

 

[Thentilian]

Is the bios chip removable or is it soldered to the board?

I believe it's soldered on. Since removing the Q-connector and resyncing it in windows this afternoon the clock seems to be keeping time ok now... I dunno if the Q-connector was shorting on a pin causing weirdness with the clock? But i'm not convinced it just fixed itself just yet. But maybe somehow that was the problem. I'll keep you posted if the time slips up again.

I saw your video- how strange! Send the video link to the Asus customer service, see what they have to say.

Did you update the UEFI BIOS for a specific feature that you wanted or needed? If the update wasn't a 'fix' or improvement maybe try rolling back the update.

I updated to the latest BIOS because it said improved stability, since I was overclocking I updated. I went back to 0810 to see if it was the BIOS, but the same issue with the clock was happening. I'll forward the link to Asus, but at this point they just want me to RMA it. They didn't even really try to trouble shoot the issue. I'm not very impressed with their customer service rep so far.

After the issue happened again with BIOS 0810 I went back to 0812, because it was more stable than 0810... but as I mentioned above it might of been the Q-connector thing for the front panel that caused the issues. Just have to see if time falls behind again... And NVM, wow I just noticed the clock froze for 3 minutes while editing this post! WTF... it's now 4 minutes behind, just like that.