Clock runs fast

[Jauchart]

For some reason the clock in my toolbar gains about 5
minutes a day. I'm running WinXP on a 2-year-old Dell
Dimension 4300.
What causes this, and how do I fix it?
Thanks

 

[Guest]

CMOS Battery on your Mother Board can, If you open your
case it looks like a big watch battery . Has clip that
holds it in remove and go to radio shack match up.

 

[ursa99]

or...you could set it to sync with an internet time server. Double click on
your clock, then the Internet time tab and check the appropriate box...

 

[CWatters]

It might be the battery but I suspect not. I believe the system clock is a
S/W clock that is only updated from the CMOS H/W clock at power up. What
happens overnight when the PC is switched off? If it keeps time when
switched off then it probably isn't the battery.

 

[Norm]

This seems to be a very common problem with Dell's. You can search this
newsgroup in google or the dell support forum. Here is a link with some
solutions: http://tinyurl.com/3g94g
And don't bother opening your case to change the cmos battery because if the
battery was at fault you would only experience problems when the pc is
powered off and then turned on again at a later time.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In (e-mail address removed)

CMOS Battery on your Mother Board can, If you open your
case it looks like a big watch battery . Has clip that
holds it in remove and go to radio shack match up.

No. Before anyone whose clock isn't correct rushes out to buy a
new battery, he should first take note of whether he is goes off
while the computer is running or while it's powered off. If it's
while powered off, the problem *is* very likely the battery. But
if it's while running (which would seem to be his situation), it
can *not* be the battery.

If the clock goes off while running, try this:

Open a command prompt window (Start | Run | cmd) and enter the
following commands:

net stop w32time
w32tm /unregister
w32tm /register
net start w32time

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

 

[Alex Nichol]

For some reason the clock in my toolbar gains about 5
minutes a day. I'm running WinXP on a 2-year-old Dell
Dimension 4300.
What causes this, and how do I fix it?

This problem seems to happen quite often with Dell machines. Usually a
steady rate of loss like 10 minutes in an hour, rather than 5 mins a
day, but still, try the same fix. . It appears to result from a
conflict with the BIOS over the interval between 'timer interrupts'.
Windows maintains the clock by counting these, so if the interval is not
the expected one, the rate is grossly out in this manner.

Try these steps:

1. Start->Run cmd.exe
2. net stop w32time
3. w32tm.exe /unregister
4. w32tm.exe /register
5. net start w32time

(note spellings w32tm and w32time in different commands)