Registered: Jan 2000
Location: SoCal
Posts: 115

Computer Clock Question

I have several networked computer at work running NT4.0. The clocks on these computers are wacko - one gains an hour about every 3 days another loses time almost as fast. The dumb thing in NT you have to have local admin rights to change the clock settings so it gets to be a real pain and a major problem because all of the calendar alarms go off at the wrong time.

A. is there a fix so the clock will keep better time?

B. is there a work around for needing to have admin rights to set the clock?

Thanks for any assistance.

Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Rochester, NY
Posts: 284

There's NTP (Network Time Protocol). It's used to set the time from a network time server, either intranet or internet. There must be a service for this under NT somewhere.

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Registered: Mar 2001
Location: Out of my skull, back in five minutes
Posts: 1435

IIRC, your network administrator should be able to have all the machines check a time server - pretty much can be any computer the admin designates, doesn't have to be an Internet time server - at predetermined intervals. That would be a solution to keeping the computers in sync, anyway.
How this is done, I'd have to go look up.

Any computer that repeatedly loses several minutes a day should undergo an overhaul; there may be something wrong with it.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 3034

quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick
[...] Any computer that repeatedly loses several minutes a day should undergo an overhaul; there may be something wrong with it.

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Yes, it may be running Windows. The problem is often with a service or program running on the machine. Since Windows's clock is kept separately from the hardware clock (it only checks it on startup and updates it on shutdown typically), a resource-intensive program may cause a system to lose time. The quick way to find out is to kill power to the system. If when it comes back up, the clock is correct, it's Windows's fault. Unfortunately, Windows doesn't tend to like it when you do that.