Suden system clock changes

[Harry]

I am working in W2K domain with 3DCs. In the past few
months servers within our network experience sudden system
clock changes. The system jumps a few months ahead and
then a 1 or 2 ahead. The time on dc's is fine. When I
try to log in to the servers I get the following error:
There is a time difference between the client and server

My main concern is that system clocks on various servers
are changing for unexplicable reasons. It is very alarming
and strange.

Any advice? Help?

H.

 

[Ray Lava [MSFT]]

Harry,

In a Windows 2000 domain, the PDC emulator is the authoritative time server
for all the clients in the domain. XP and 2000 computers will automatically
sync with the PDC emulator on regular intervals.

I have seen this problem one other time where massive clock skews ocurred
suddenly on computers throughout the domain and the time is changed by
months, not just minutes. Normally this problem starts on a few computers
and spreads over time.

In this case, the problem was caused by a faulty bios battery on the PDC
emulator. Once it was replaced, the time shew problem went away. In your
situation, you might want to try moving the PDC emulator role to another
domain controller in the domain and see if that resolves the problem.

I have also seen some 3rd party time sync applications cause similar
problems so if you have any of those installed, you might try uninstalling
them.

I hope this helps.

Ray Lava
Microsoft Corporation

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