My system clock always seems to lose the time. It begins by being off by an hour (usually ahead of time) and then at some point seems to get off by four or five hours. I've checked for spyware, and the computer is clean. I've heard a dead battery can cause this problem, but my computer is just a few months old. Can anybody tell me where the problem might lie? Thanks.

Oh I just wanted to add that I leave my computer running 24/7, so it's losing the time while the computer is up. I'm not sure if it would lose the time if I were to shut it down for awhile and then reboot.

Runny 24 7 not a good idea recomending shuting down every night.... running 24 kinda blow my idea out of the water cant be bios battery.. make sure your in right time zone ? if you find out please let me know what fixed your problem Wondering what you did wrong happens only when its too late

alex, my first thought is battery. Dunno if it applies to them or not, but in my experience, the mere fact that something's new doesn't always mean it's good. I'd change it just to make sure. If that fails, there's a freebie program called 'Stay Alive 2000' that's designed to keep someone online who gets kicked off for inactivity by periodically checking mail or pinging the Naval Observatory atomic clock. It can be set to automatically reset your system clock in order to syncronize the two. You can set it to update your time as often as you like. If you think it might help, get it @: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Garage/7334/Kpalive.html HTH. Ed in Texas.

Check out Dimension 4: http://www.thinkman.com/dimension4/

Thanks to everyone who gave suggestions. I would just replace the BIOS battery, but I am a little hesitant to do so unless I can find out for sure that's the problem, since I've read that sometimes when doing this you can permanently mess up your BIOS settings and lose access to your computer. Is any of that true? I have a little further info on the problem, if it helps. I've observed the clock more closely since posting and come to realize exactly what it's doing: it seems to be continually moving foward slowly. So when I reset it using the internet time server I'll get the exact time. Then soon it will be 2 minutes fast, then 5, then 8, then 30, then 60, and on and on until it's hours off... Does that sound like it could be a battery problem, or something else? Hope that sheds a little more light on the matter... Any more input would be appreciated...

No pun intended but is your CPU overclocked?