My computer's clock is losing time quite rapidly and I believe it the CMOS battery at fault. Does anyone know of any free-ware sites that have a CMOS saving program? Also, am I off-base on my thinking? Thanks in advance for your replies.

Maybe bios1310.zip …found at good ol’ Simtel:
http://www.simtel.com/product.php?id=13599 “Dump(s) the whole BIOS segment to disk”

Found under “windows bios utility “

Ryan,

It may be something else.

Question;
Is your clock right when you turn the computer on, and it loses time after that?
Without resetting the clock does it correct itself if you turn computer off and on again?

Bill

Hello Bill and thanks for your reply. To answer your question, after resetting the clock it loses time and keeps the time at a slower pace whether the machine is turned on or not.

Ryan,

I had what sounds like a similar problem several months ago where I found I was losing maybe 45 min a day (don't remember exactly) but it actually turned out to be a software problem (with McAfee Viruscan). I upgraded to a different version and everything was fine.

Here was my thread: https://www.electrical-contractor.net/ubb/Forum8/HTML/000043.html

I've had Batteries go bad in the past and they would always revert to some date and time when powered down. As far as I remember they would keep time correctly while they were on, I suspect your problem isn't the battery.

Bill

Clock times can be slow to either a CMOS Battery, software running, or even just low quaility components slowly failing.

If your clock is loosing time when the machine is off, then it is either the battery or components. The battery is very easy to replace, as are the CMOS settings. 95% of Bioses are just left at the defaults, and should work fine. The key screen to pay attention to is usually the first one that has all of your drives listed.

If the clock is loosing power when the machine is turned on, then this is most likely software or just cheap components. As Bill mentioned, some anti-virus software will do this, as will any software that takes priority over the system processes. The clock just slowly gets pushed aside and cant keep up.

The best fix for the software solution (and the hardware if the time isnt 100% critical) is to install some NTP Software. NTP = Network Time Protocol. This is built into Windows XP / Newer Macs and most Linux. This software in XP can be reached by double clicking on the clock in the task bar.

The NTP Software will at certain intervals contact a central server to see what the current time is, then based on how long the response took figure out the current exact time, and set the system clock to that.

It's kinda’ geekey, but there is a freeware application online called NetLab 1.4, that has an SNTP clock-synchronization capability.




[This message has been edited by Bjarney (edited 09-22-2003).]

Some designs will run fast or slow when the battery is nearly worn out, not that the clocks in many systems are that good at accurate timekeeping to begin with.

Most of your other CMOS settings can be fine-tuned after installing a new battery, even if you don't remember to note their settings first.

The main one to watch is your hard disk type number, otherwise you may not be able to reboot after fitting the new battery. Most new systems will auto-detect, however, so you may not even have to worry about that.

Gentlemen: As always, thanks for your replies. I will let you know what I find.

I have been crunching a Mersienne Prime 24/7 since May on my sys. My clock looses about 15m a day.

On the topic of recording BIOS settings, with my older machines (386, 486, and... of course 286) you could send a print screen copy to the printer (accessing the CMOS setup at POST).
Award and/or Phoenix were the makers O' said BIOS software and CMOS EEPROMs (I think... ..).

BTW, the printers connected to LPT1 were Tractor-Feed Impact Printers - typically Epson MX-80.

Back in the days when I would service these machines (pre AL430 and AL440 chipsets), I would print out the current setups using my MX-80 on the "subject machine", then when all was good once again, print out the settings again (if altered).
Also would keep soft and hard copies of system configurations (Config.sys, Autoexec.bat, Win.sys, etc.).

Just wondering how many others did same.

I still have BIOS print outs archived!

Thinking about playing around with the 386 machine sometime soon, just for the heck of it!

Scott35

Ah yes,

I used to keep copies of all of those files too. I was always tweaking something to run the newer programs on the older machines it was a challenge trying to avoid those "out of memory" error messages. It was pretty tricky sometimes getting some things to run and I remember having to make special boot disks with customized Autoexec.bat and config.sys for some programs (OK, I mean Games.. )

Bill

It still is, despite "Plug 'n' Play!"

Paul: I thought it was called "plug and PRAY"!!!

BTW: I don't know what has changed on my machine, but my clock has been keeping accurate time for about three days now... ??

Yep, it sure is!

I just spent nearly three hours re-installing Windows on a friend's machine and trying to get it to recognize the PCI-slot modem. There's still a problem with the drivers that I'll have to try and sort out tomorrow.

I guess I forgot to turn around and bow three times toward Seattle.....

Remember when Gates was introducing 95 to the world? He was installing some piece of hardware to show off plug and play, and it gave him the blue screen of death! I don't think I've leaughed so hard in my life!

Bill;


Oh, ya, went through this alot to run some very important applications! (OK, you all know what they were! Games with high graphics and audio!, but they were very important to me...).
Loved (actually hated!) to see the quickly flashed "Memory Overflow" messages when trying to cram a Gallon of stuff into a teacup of DOS memory allocation!

When DOS 6.0 came out, the need for bootdisk caching/smashing went away with the multiboot startup menu ability (SUBMENU in the Config.sys).
That made it SOOOOOO much cooler for booting to a DOS prompt and running those Important applications!
Epic Pinball is one of those important ones!

Ryan_J;

It's from posting the problem here! Now it will disappear for × amount of time, then return again, which means you will need to post the same question here again!
<just joking>


I remember that! Fell off the chair laughing (ROTF LMAO!!!).
If I remember, it was a demonstration of how easilly a Scanner could be setup in Windows 98 (first release), when along came the lovely blue screen and white text (probably an Exception OE).
It was funny because I had just serviced a machine with a bad Scanner installation and resultant BSOD!

BTW, "Plug-and-Pray"... LOL!


Paul;


LOL!

Sometimes sacrificing Mac formatted floppy disks in a shredding machine will please the malign MS Gods!

Scott35

Grrr!

I just looked at my computer clock and it has lost an hour somehow in the last couple of days. I guess the problem didn't go away...

Maybe You have to slow down!


Bill