W32time out of control?

[John]

Very weird problem on a W2000 workstation, that's connected to a Windows
2000 AD.

When booting the workstation, the clock is always running 10 minutes ahead.
Manually correcting it goes fine, but a reboot causes the clock to go 10
minutes ahead again... Login off and back on does not give any time issues
(so it's not a loginscript problem). Further investigation showed that the
W32time service is causing the problem when starting. The time on the
server is ok, and also all the other W2000 workstations are having no
problems with their time.

Typing NET TIME /DOMAIN /SET in a dosbox shows indeed the 10 minutes
differences (after rebooting), en replying "Yes" to this question results in
a correct local time on the workstation.

But, after a NET STOP W32TIME followed by a NET START W32TIME the clocks
jumps 10 minutes ahead! If I then enter NET TIME /DOMAIN /SET (and reply
"Yes") the clock is adjusted correctly again...

What could this be??? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[John]

What could this be??? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

PS. The BIOS clock is fine...

So repeatedly entering

NET STOP W32TIME, NET START W32TIME results in +10 min clock
NET TIME /DOMAIN /SET results in correct clock
NET STOP W32TIME, NET START W32TIME results in +10 min clock
NET TIME /DOMAIN /SET results in correct clock
.... and so on...

 

[Michael Lueck]

Check the W32Time service and see where it is set to pull time from. If it is not the same computer you are doing NET TIME against that could explain it, yes?

 

[John]

Check the W32Time service and see where it

is set to pull time from. If it is not the same computer you
are doing NET TIME against that could explain it, yes?

That could be, yes. But how can I see that? Entering NET TIME shows me the
name of the time server, but I thought that both NET TIME and the W32TIME
services used this time server?

 

[Michael Lueck]

That could be, yes. But how can I see that? Entering NET TIME shows me the
name of the time server, but I thought that both NET TIME and the W32TIME
services used this time server?

No, Google for MS's docs on the W32TIME service. It is a service like any other and you will be exploring the Paramaters key under its main key in the registry. You can point that at any NTP
compatable time server. Such as like having your main Win2K server pull time from the government time servers across the Internet, then other servers and workstations sync from that one.