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losing time
Name: stupid man Date: May 4, 2002 at 19:54:23 Pacific
Comment:
ive noticed my windows clock loses about 10 seconds a week. is that normal or is there something more serious happening?
When you reboot your system, it gets the time from the hardwares CMOS clock chip. The spec's for these clock chips used on most PC's are +/- 2 seconds per day. So 10 seconds per week is within spec's. Actually its the spec's on the crystal used by the CMOS chip that control the accuracy. The cost goes up fast for more accurate crystals that drive these CMOS clock chips.
If your machine has a seperate, replaceable battary, then it will lose time at a faster rate just before the battary dies. However most computer boards now use a rechargable battary, that gets recharged when the system is on.
As pointed out, the time kept by the system BIOS when the machine is running, is controlled by a different crystal and it can vary greatly. If you leave the system on for several days, yes it can lose (or gain) several minutes per day. But this is corrected the next time you boot the system.
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Response Number 6
Name: Richard Date: May 6, 2002 at 05:19:23 Pacific
Reply:
You can get a little program called Atomic Clock Synchroniser. Its a freebie. I don't have the url but Google can find it.It will reset your clock in line with any one of a dozen or more timeservers available online.
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