Windows 7 Clock won't keep time

nedry

New Member
Joined
May 13, 2009
I installed RC1 on my Dell E520, which was running vista fine before the clean install. My clock keeps loosing time. And not slowly either, it frequently jumps back several hours. I tried enabling time sync and it still happens. Yesterday I replaced the RTC battery and it didn't solve the problem.


Any ideas short of going back to Vista?
 
Same Clock issue

I too did a clean install of Windows 7 and my clock rapidly loses time. The time zone is correct. I set the clocck before I left work yesterday and this morning it was displaying time from late last night. I reset the time again this morning and it is off by 17 minutes already...

I thought about changing my Internet Time Sync, but there isn't even an Internet time tab available where it is in Vista.
 
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its in same place as in windows 7 click the time in right hand corner of screen and up comes a window, click "internet time and set to the synch of your choice
 
Internet Time Tab

Sorry I was not clear in my post, I was referring to Windows 7. The Internet Time Tab is not there in Windows 7 on my PC. When I click Change Date and Time Settings the Internet Time Tab is not there where it is supposed to be.
 
Sorry I was not clear in my post, I was referring to Windows 7. The Internet Time Tab is not there in Windows 7 on my PC. When I click Change Date and Time Settings the Internet Time Tab is not there where it is supposed to be.
It's there in seven if you right click on the digital clock on the superbar-->select adjust date and time(from near the top)--> internet time tab should be the rightmost. If it is absent that seems to be the problem although i don't know of a cause off the top of my head. Are you sure this was a clean install not an upgrade and exactly what OS are you running the RC or the RTM?
 
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If your computer is part a Windows domain the option won't appear since you are syncing with the server. It is possible something in your Local Group Policy is overriding the time server settings and not letting you access that tab?
 
Thanks,

I am logged onto our Domain and my PC clock should be syncing with our Domain Server, but it isn't working correctly and therefore my PC is not maintaining correct time. I will begin digging through GP Any guidance you could give me would be appreciated.

To answer earlier question , I deleted my partition and formated drive prior to install of Windows 7 RTM
 
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If its not working correctly you can create a Time Server GPO in Server 2008. It won't take long to set up. Make sure it only applies to clients. The best way to do this is have any Server organizational units and the Domain Controller OU "Block Inheritance" but make sure you "Force" (or whatever its called since its early in the morning) the "Domain Controller Policy" so that the servers also inherit that default policy. Don't make any changes to the Default Domain Controller Policy or Domain Controller Policy... leave them be. Make all of your custom changes modular. Apply a GPO configuration that will sync the time for all clients on your network. .. that is one way when dealing with large # of computers... however, you can do it from the commandline on a workstation according to MS:

Configure a client computer for automatic domain time synchronization: Windows Time Service

Code:
[B]To configure a client computer for automatic domain time synchronization [/B][LIST=1]
[*]Open a Command Prompt.
[*]Type the following command and then press ENTER:
[B]w32tm /config /syncfromflags:domhier /update[/B]
[*]Type the following command and then press ENTER:
[B]net stop w32time[/B]
[*]Type the following command and then press ENTER:
[B]net start w32time[/B]
[/LIST]

Windows Time Service Tools and Settings: Windows Time Service
I would do it through a group policy object...
 
Hi Mike,

I appreciate your assistance greatly. Domain time sync is working on my network. I am only having issue with one PC that I am testing Windows 7 on. Trying to figure out what is causing this strange time behavior. For instance, when I came in this morning at 7:15am, the time on this pc was saying 11:30 PM, then a little while later it changed to the correct time without input from me. Since then the time is off again. It is currently 10:54am, but the time on this Windows 7 PC is 9:21am. Any ideas?
 
Listen I am scraping the barrel here but when you changed the battery did you fit it correctly, is it loose or upside down? Just a thought about a very odd problem
 
This PC is a new DEll Optiplex 760 that shipped with Windows XP Professional. It had been set up on our network and was functioning as expected. I decided to test Windows 7 on this system, so I reformated the drive and installed 7 RTM fresh. I know the issue is not the battery becasue when I go into bios the time is correct.
 
This PC is a new DEll Optiplex 760 that shipped with Windows XP Professional. It had been set up on our network and was functioning as expected. I decided to test Windows 7 on this system, so I reformated the drive and installed 7 RTM fresh. I know the issue is not the battery becasue when I go into bios the time is correct.
Only way to prove that it's not the current battery on the motherboard is to replace it with a fresh battery from the store, set the time in bios if it's not already set, and then go into Windows and do your normal routines in which you were testing the time settings in Windows. Sure, you would think that because the bios showed the correct time that it has to be something wrong with Windows, but I've seen it before on another computer and it was indeed the battery that was bad.
 
Replaced battery to exclude that posibility and as I expected, the issue persits.
 
(sorry to bump a slightly old thread, but...)
This PC is a new DEll Optiplex 760 that shipped with Windows XP Professional. It had been set up on our network and was functioning as expected. I decided to test Windows 7 on this system, so I reformated the drive and installed 7 RTM fresh. I know the issue is not the battery becasue when I go into bios the time is correct.

I think I am having a similar issue on a 760. Windows 7 Ultimate (x64) RTM, on our domain, and the time is not working correctly. I noticed today that if I go to Adjust Date/Time, and select a different window, the time stops, and eventually proceeds to the next second (not in one second intervals). If I select the Date and Time window, again, it will proceed to tick off the seconds, in proper intervals. The time never jumps in large segments (multiple seconds or minutes), only to the next second.
The time rarely syncronizes with our time server, so I made a shortcut to update the time when I need it:


Code:
C:\Windows\System32\net.exe time \\[our time server] /set /yes

The time worked fine when I had windows XP installed, so I don't believe it is a hardware (battery) problem.
I formatted the drive during Win7 install, so it would not perform an upgrade.
There are a couple of others testing RTM on our domain, I am the only one with x64 and the only one with a 760.


edit: interesting.... I just noticed, if I keep moving the mouse, or hold down a keyboard key, the clock continues to tick off the seconds, correctly... I think M$ has just made it so the user's all put in the same amount of work, based on mouse movement, and keyboard use! :p

edit2: updated bios, from a02 to a03, clock seems to be functioning correctly. Will post back later if this did not work (should have thought of that sooner...:frown:)
 
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