[techtalk] Computer clock way slow

[Jamie Walker]

Britta Koch wrote:

> As I said, my computer clock is way slow. Whenever I set it, it only
> takes a few days for it to get a few hours behind again. Do I just need
> to change the battery? My computer is only 10 months old - could it be
> that something else is amiss (the clock chip)?
> 
> I only have Linux on my box, so the clock is set to GMT.
> 
> Thanks for your advice in advance!

Hi Britta - as a temporary thing, you could use xntp or similar to
automatically synchronise your time regularly. It comes with RedHat 6.1
(probably comes with other distros too) as xntp3-5.93-13.i386.rpm and no
doubt freshmeat.net lists it too. It's capable of keeping track of the
drift of your system clock and compensating and it also syncronises with
time servers on the Internet.

My home system syncronises to an NZ server whenever it goes online and
fairly regularly after that.

As for batteries, if the time goes out while the machine is running,
this doesn't seem too likely. PC clocks are notorious for not being very
accurate, but then they shouldn't be *that* inaccurate.

If the machine is still under warranty, you might want to talk to the
supplier about a replacement.

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