[Tfug] PC Clock

[Paul Scott]

Jim Secan wrote:

>
>This is what my concern was - is this the hardware clock or some other
>problem.  I should have said that I mostly run WinXP on this beast, with a
>dual-boot into FC3 every now and again (perhaps once or twice a week).  I
>don't need hyper-accurate time, +/- a couple of minutes is fine and the
>once-per-6h goose from ntp keeps it in line (jitter's not an issue).  I'm
>more worried about what other problems this particular behavior is a
>symptom of that could bite me.
>
>I don't know if XP runs the clock in software entirely after boot or if it
>gets updates from the hardware periodically.  If it's the former, something
>is amiss in whatever is clocking the software time-keeping, and that
>bothers me a little.  I'm hoping it's the latter, for which a simple
>battery replacement might do the trick.
>  
>
Since either software or hardware is capable of some drift even if small 
why not run something like ntpdate anyway?

Paul Scott