My computer clock is losing time

[madison2000]

and its getting worse all the time.
But as far as I know this has no effects on the performance of the machine, its just a nuisance.

[WindRavenX]

1. that happened to me...

....needed a new battery.

[sendero]

3. Exactly..

... that is almost always the reason.

And, when that battery goes you can lose all of your CMOS settings, it would be a good idea to go into Setup and write them all down.

[benburch]

2. You need a new clock battery.

Shouldn't be very expensive.

[Padraig18]

4. You may need to defrag.

That happens to ours whenever we need to defrag.

[B Calm]

18. Thats what it is! Do a disk cleanup and defrag..

[Benhurst]

5. YOU ARE DOOMED

or, more likely, you need a new battery. :silly:

[twenty2strings]

6. My wife says it's theCMOS battery most likely...Easy fix.N/T

[madison2000]

8. You mean the alternator doesn't automoatically recharge it when I surf

for at least 3 miles at full speed?

[Speck Tater]

7. Look on the floor under the CPU

to see if there's a little puddle of time building up there. Sometimes the lost time is leaking out the bottom of the case and soaking into the carpet. It's almost as bad as a memory leak. That will ruin a good carpet in a hurry!

[madison2000]

10. You're as bad as me

I work on a helpdesk, and sometimes when I have an end user who says their machine is too slow, I tell them they should take up yoga and it will change their view of things.

[Dookus]

9. stop travelling

near the speed of light.

[Melynn]

11. Do you have application running continuously?

Is the clock time right when you boot the computer up but loses time the longer it is on? If that is the case then you may have an application running all the time that is dragging down the computer. I had this problem with some sort of AOL application that ran all the time (I forget the application, it was sort of crappy AOL thing). I stopped the application from running and the computer's time is always right now. I also stopped using AOL as my ISP but that's a different story.

If the clock is behind when you boot the computer up, then you probably need a new battery.

[madison2000]

13. Its losing a little each day like a watch

actually, I've never replaced a CMOS battery... I guess now is the time

[madison2000]

17. Sometimes I leave my computer on for days

so I rebooted it and the time was correct when it came up into Windows- it was 40 minutes slow before rebooting.. now I have to figure out which app is doing it. IE?!

[Melynn]

24. It could be IE

Look at your taskbar to see what programs are might be running in the background. Also do a ALT-CTL-DTL, which will be bring up a window which will show what programs are running. Some of those programs are necessary for Windows to run and some aren't. You may have to play a guessing game for a while until you can figure out which program is doing it. You also may have spyware. Good luck.

[4_Legs_Good]

12. It's being abducted by aliens

I'm almost certain this is the case!

david

[DainBramaged]

14. If it's more than 3 years old, maybe it's time to retire it?

Batteries have a life of about 3 years in most computers. If it's older than that, it could be time to retire it. If you have the battery changed, more than likely you'll have to re-configure the setup parameters. I don't know where you live, but you should check with your local shop for the charge to change it. Also, if you've never done it, don't let anyone convince you it's easy. The wrong move of a cable or not grounding for static discharge will ruin it anyway.

[u4ic]

15. My VCR has done that

ever since I got it. :grr:

[DemoTex]

16. Radio Shack has "atomic" clocks for $9.95.

Why can't the computer manufacturers put a WWV-update feature on their computer clocks? There are programs that will reference an atomic clock server to get the current time to update your computer's clock. I have a WWV-updated clock (MFJ) in my ham radio station that I use for a periodic manual update of the computer clock.

[Thor_MN]

21. There are programs to set your computer's clock from atomic clocks.

I believe the same clocks used by WWV. All you need is the program and an internet connection.

[madison2000]

22. Well, all I need is the program!

[pintobean]

23. double click the clock

In the window that appears, click the internet time tab. Click the update now button.

Edit: If you're behind a firewall, you may need to disable it while updating the time.

[elperromagico]

19. The Lonely End Of A Computer Clock.

Tick tock tick - tock -- tick --- tock ---- tick ---- tock ----- pffffftt

[texas1928]

20. No that is bad when your computer is too busy.

Does it get irritable when you try to send e-mail and download music at the same time.