Why is my time not working?

S

Spuff

Expert
Since yesterday the Windows 8 time in my bottom right is going slow. If I manually trigger a synchronization then it does update to the current time and it will keep time for a bit but after a while it becomes well behind the actual time. Right now I synched it at about 21:00 and as I type it is showing 22:06 when the time is actually 23:04 (Daylight Saving is on).
I've done a system restore to a point when it was working, and tried different time servers, but the problem remains.
 
L

LFFPicard

Godlike
The CMOS battery will only come into effect to store this information when the machine is turned off and not drawing power.

It seems a bit odd, silly question though is the location set correctly? The only thing I can think of is that it seems to be a whole hour behind, so maybe after you manual sync it is checking itself against the wrong location and therefore changes the clock back a hour.

Another question though, is it always a hour out or if you leave it for say a whole day does it get even further behind?

Failing all that, I think you have stumbled across a time machine!
 
S

Spuff

Expert
No, it's not always an hour out, the times I cited were coincidentally about an hour different. It has been slipping further behind the longer I leave it. I have it set to '(UTC) Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London'.
And yes, I don't think it's the CMOS on its own because it starts going slow after a synch while the PC is on. The CMOS as far as I know is just involved in remembering the time when the PC is off, and the time function says it auto synchs on a scheduled basis and it's not doing that. For what it's worth I've just started my PC and the real time is now 19:10 and the Windows time says 22:14.
 
ubuysa

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
Out of interest what time is shown in the BIOS? I think it's worth looking to establish whether it's the hardware clock that's out or whether it's Windows reading of the clock that's at fault.
 
S

Spuff

Expert
It's wrong in the BIOS. Oddly, I set the right time in BIOS but now I've booted up the Windows time is different. The time in BIOS was 04: something (which I corrected) when the real time was 13:39, I boot up and the Windows time shows as 13:05.
The date is correct.
 
S

Spuff

Expert
My board is an Asus Maximus VI. Reading on the net, my and other Asus boards can have a time issue, although none of the symptoms I saw exactly matched mine.
I don't want to fiddle about inside. I've set up a forced time synch in Task Scheduler to run daily at a time I'm asleep (so I know it will be a time the PC is off), and set it to run missed runnings at boot (it actually takes a couple of minutes before it runs). I've managed to get the time working correctly once synched, so this fudge is working.
The problem occurred out of the blue, computers do move in such mysterious ways.
 
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