Keeping Accurate time on XP Pro? Meinberg

[W. eWatson]

If I select the time/date from the desktop bar, and select internet time
using navy (usno) standard, my clock still drifts a few seconds a day.
This does not seem right.

I have Meinberg's NTP software and that works fine, but I bring the PC
down every day. There must be some way to start this program during
boot-up. What's the mechanism? Probably some scheduling icon on the
control panel.

I use Meinberg on another XP Pro PC,and the PC is up all the time. When
I start it though, I need to use the program's menu to specify Start
NTP, and wait 10 seconds to complete the process. How will I be able to
do that for the above PC?

 

[Bert Hyman]

In "W. eWatson"

I have Meinberg's NTP software and that works fine, but I bring the PC
down every day. There must be some way to start this program during
boot-up. What's the mechanism? Probably some scheduling icon on the
control panel.

If you can't get that to work, you could look at another client that's
designed to be started at boot time and run automatically in the
background. I've had good luck with

http://thinkman.com/dimension4/index.htm

 

[George Neuner]

If I select the time/date from the desktop bar, and select internet time
using navy (usno) standard, my clock still drifts a few seconds a day.
This does not seem right.

I understand that you don't like it, but a few seconds a day (if it is
a _few_, i.e. up to 3, seconds) really is not a lot of drift. I've
seen some clocks lose minutes a day.

The software built into Windows checks with a time server about once a
week. If you want to check more often you must use other software.

I have Meinberg's NTP software and that works fine, but I bring the PC
down every day. There must be some way to start this program during
boot-up. What's the mechanism? Probably some scheduling icon on the
control panel.

Yes, the Task Scheduler. There is a wizard that will walk you through
the basic task setup. More advanced settings are available through
the task's properties dialog once the task has been created.

I use Meinberg on another XP Pro PC,and the PC is up all the time. When
I start it though, I need to use the program's menu to specify Start
NTP, and wait 10 seconds to complete the process. How will I be able to
do that for the above PC?

You can't. If you want to use the Task Scheduler to run a daemon
program (one with no user interaction), the program either must work
from saved settings or take command line parameters.

I've never used Meinberg NTP, but from the cheat sheet[1] it looks
like you can configure it to run silently and start it at boot or at
login.

George
[1] http://www.meinberg.de/download/ntp/docs/ntp_cheat_sheet.pdf

 

[Yousuf Khan]

If I select the time/date from the desktop bar, and select internet time
using navy (usno) standard, my clock still drifts a few seconds a day.
This does not seem right.

I have Meinberg's NTP software and that works fine, but I bring the PC
down every day. There must be some way to start this program during
boot-up. What's the mechanism? Probably some scheduling icon on the
control panel.

I use Meinberg on another XP Pro PC,and the PC is up all the time. When
I start it though, I need to use the program's menu to specify Start
NTP, and wait 10 seconds to complete the process. How will I be able to
do that for the above PC?

I don't use Meinberg's program, but I use something called AboutTime,
which I can simply put it into the "Startup" folder under the desktop
Programs, and that starts it up whenever I'm logged into my account.

Yousuf Khan

 

[W. eWatson]

If I select the time/date from the desktop bar, and select internet time
using navy (usno) standard, my clock still drifts a few seconds a day.
This does not seem right.

I understand that you don't like it, but a few seconds a day (if it is
a _few_, i.e. up to 3, seconds) really is not a lot of drift. I've
seen some clocks lose minutes a day.

The software built into Windows checks with a time server about once a
week. If you want to check more often you must use other software.

I have Meinberg's NTP software and that works fine, but I bring the PC
down every day. There must be some way to start this program during
boot-up. What's the mechanism? Probably some scheduling icon on the
control panel.

Yes, the Task Scheduler. There is a wizard that will walk you through
the basic task setup. More advanced settings are available through
the task's properties dialog once the task has been created.

I use Meinberg on another XP Pro PC,and the PC is up all the time. When
I start it though, I need to use the program's menu to specify Start
NTP, and wait 10 seconds to complete the process. How will I be able to
do that for the above PC?

You can't. If you want to use the Task Scheduler to run a daemon
program (one with no user interaction), the program either must work
from saved settings or take command line parameters.

I've never used Meinberg NTP, but from the cheat sheet[1] it looks
like you can configure it to run silently and start it at boot or at
login.

George
[1] http://www.meinberg.de/download/ntp/docs/ntp_cheat_sheet.pdf

3 seconds is way too much for a number of science applications.

Thanks for the sheet link.

 

[John John]

If I select the time/date from the desktop bar, and select internet time
using navy (usno) standard, my clock still drifts a few seconds a day.
This does not seem right.

I understand that you don't like it, but a few seconds a day (if it is
a _few_, i.e. up to 3, seconds) really is not a lot of drift. I've
seen some clocks lose minutes a day.

The software built into Windows checks with a time server about once a
week. If you want to check more often you must use other software.

I have Meinberg's NTP software and that works fine, but I bring the PC
down every day. There must be some way to start this program during
boot-up. What's the mechanism? Probably some scheduling icon on the
control panel.

Yes, the Task Scheduler. There is a wizard that will walk you through
the basic task setup. More advanced settings are available through
the task's properties dialog once the task has been created.

I use Meinberg on another XP Pro PC,and the PC is up all the time. When
I start it though, I need to use the program's menu to specify Start
NTP, and wait 10 seconds to complete the process. How will I be able to
do that for the above PC?

You can't. If you want to use the Task Scheduler to run a daemon
program (one with no user interaction), the program either must work
from saved settings or take command line parameters.

I've never used Meinberg NTP, but from the cheat sheet[1] it looks
like you can configure it to run silently and start it at boot or at
login.

George
[1] http://www.meinberg.de/download/ntp/docs/ntp_cheat_sheet.pdf

3 seconds is way too much for a number of science applications.

The Windows time service update interval can be modified via the
UpdateInterval registry value. The Windows time service can manually
resync the time with the w32tm /resync command.

John

 

[George Neuner]

The Windows time service update interval can be modified via the
UpdateInterval registry value.

Nice to know, but there should be a way to set it in the GUI. The
registry is a hazard way too dangerous for most people to navigate.

George

 

[John John]

Nice to know, but there should be a way to set it in the GUI. The
registry is a hazard way too dangerous for most people to navigate.

Doug Knox has written a GUI tool for those who don't want to manually
edit the registry:

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_inet_time.htm

John

 

[- Bobb -]

Google "ntp public time servers".

On your PC time setting, use thriers or add your new time server, and check
the "automatically sync' box. The default is weekly.

But if you want to update each boot, add this string / bat file to your
startup
" w32tm /resync"
and it will fetch the time from your designated server .

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc773263(WS.10).aspx for syntax
help

 

[W. eWatson]

Well, this is really odd. The other day, Monday night, I fired up
Meinberg, and got the time synced well. Tuesday morning I turned off the
PC, then turned it on Tuesday night. The time was quite accurate. I then
turned off the PC that night, and fired it up Wednesday afternoon. The
time was still holding firm, and I hadn't used Meinberg since Monday.

Is it possible Meinberg "tickled" something with internet time?

 

[Tester]

Meinberg starts automatically when you boot your system. It is in your
startup program list. There is no need for you to do anything otherwise
it defeats the purpose!

hth

 

[W. eWatson]

Meinberg starts automatically when you boot your system. It is in your
startup program list. There is no need for you to do anything otherwise
it defeats the purpose!

hth

I have doubts about that. I have two XP Pro machines that need accurate
time. When goes down from say a power outage, very often I have to
restart Meinberg.

I had some notion that I could schedule a task, so I went to the
Schedule Task icon on the ConPanel. Yes, it appears I can do that, but
I don't see anything scheduled there. I thought there would at least be
something MS put there. What am I missing?

 

[Tester]

I have doubts about that. I have two XP Pro machines that need accurate
time. When goes down from say a power outage, very often I have to
restart Meinberg.

I had some notion that I could schedule a task, so I went to the
Schedule Task icon on the ConPanel. Yes, it appears I can do that, but
I don't see anything scheduled there. I thought there would at least be
something MS put there. What am I missing?

Have you checked your processes that are running on your system? You
should have ntpd.exe (running under ntp username) as image name under
processes column. To check this do CTRL+Alt+Del and in Windows Task
Manager you will see it.

From my experience, this process should always start automatically if
Meinberg is installed on the system.

hth

 

[W. eWatson]

Have you checked your processes that are running on your system? You
should have ntpd.exe (running under ntp username) as image name under
processes column. To check this do CTRL+Alt+Del and in Windows Task
Manager you will see it.

From my experience, this process should always start automatically if
Meinberg is installed on the system.

hth

Yes, surprisingly and happily, both XP machines I use for science
programs have ntpd.exe processes running, and both are in agreement with
my atomic clock, to at least a second, if not better. No need to fire
them up from the keyboard. Maybe.

There have been times when the one machine, which runs 24/7, has gone
down from a power outage. I think sometimes I have "neglected" to start
Meinberg, or may have started it incorrectly, since I have seen the time
drift on either these occasions or some other way.

Well,this is very good that I don't need to set the clock on the other
XP PC that only is powered up from about 7pm to 6am.

 

[W. eWatson]

As it turns out, one XP PC, the 24/7 one, loses time after several days.
I must be starting it up incorrectly.

The other PC I take down every day for about 18 hours, and its clock is
still very accurate.

 

[Tester]

As it turns out, one XP PC, the 24/7 one, loses time after several days.
I must be starting it up incorrectly.

Can you try to enter this code in your configuration file:

server 0.north-america.pool.ntp.org
server 1.north-america.pool.ntp.org
server 2.north-america.pool.ntp.org
server 3.north-america.pool.ntp.org

server 0.us.pool.ntp.org
server 1.us.pool.ntp.org
server 2.us.pool.ntp.org
server 3.us.pool.ntp.org


The configuration file is at this location:

<C:\Program Files\NTP\etc\ntp.conf>

You need to open ntp.conf in Notepad and then just copy and paste the
code shown above at the end of the file. When the file is saved, make
sure there is no .txt at the end of it. You can alternatively try to
use SAVE AS from FILE menu item and enter:

"ntp.conf" including the quotation marks so that it saves as it is.

Hope this helps.