Something keeps changing my Windows time (new cmos battery)

[jaye24]

Summary: my BIOS time was four hours off, I changed it to the correct time and now at various times my Windows time changes to four hours behind. No event of the time change in the event viewer.

This is a new motherboard and the BIOS time stays constant (read other posts saying a bad cmos battery can cause time to change). At first my Windows time kept losing about 3 minutes even after manually changing it and making sure the internet time is running. So I figured it was a problem with the BIOS time and changed it to the correct time (moved it up 3 hours 57 minutes - overlooked this when initially setting it up). Booted into Windows and the time was 4 hours behind. So I manually changed the time and thought nothing of it. Came back to the computer many hours later and the time was back to 4 hours off. Went to check the Windows internet time setting, which was set to run, and clicked update now. This set the time to the correct date/time, so the timezone settings, Windows time process, etc. are correct. Over the next few days the time kept moving back four hours after an extended period of time (and sometimes reboots - this was not consistent). I did the unregister/register w32tm and some other things with no luck.

The one odd thing about this is whenever I manually changed the time or the internet time changed it I always found an entry in the event log about the change. However whenever "whatever" is changing my time it is not logged, at least in the event viewer.

For now I "fixed" this by keeping the BIOS time four hours ahead. Yes this is a workaround but I would really like to find out what is changing the time. I ran sysinternals autoruns and there are a ton of things running at startup and is not going to be easy to check each one.

My guess is it must be some program/process running that checks the BIOS time against the Windows time but the timezone set in that program/process is not correct (must have been installed with incorrect BIOS time and related that to the Windows timezone.... just a thought).

Just wondering if anyone experienced this or has thoughts on what can be doing this or how to troubleshoot.

Thanks

Jay

 

[ThrashZone]

You might check on this,
Changing the Motherboard might have made your windows Invalid,
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3408-activate-windows-7-online.html
Did you set your clock with Internet time ?
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/944-time-zone-change.html
Found this possibly review it,
http://www.sevenforums.com/windows-...ctivation-re-validation-hardware-changes.html

 

[ICIT2LOL]

In addition to what Thrash Zone has said mate I have on occasions phoned Microsoft (don't get caught with that logmein croed it is usually a 6 dgit number starting 13 ####) explained that the original board has died and they have reset the activation for the new board - worth try if the other stuff doesn't work out and they are usually more than helpful.

 

[jaye24]

Thanks for the replies. I activated it right after replacing the motherboard with no problems.

I set the clock with internet time a number of times and it always sets it correctly, plus when it changes the time it always put a log message in the event viewer of the previous time and what it changed it to. For instance, I rebooted and the clock was set to 4 hours behind. I went into internet time to make sure it was set to run, which is was, then clicked update now. It changed the time to the current time, so that is working correctly (and therefore my timezone in Windows is set correctly).

Whatever is doing this appears to be going off the BIOS time with some configured offset based on the previous incorrect time and worse yet is not logging the time change to the event viewer.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Jaye stranger things happen at sea they say but how about setting the BIOS time four hours ahead of what you want? Sounds stupid but I have a Toshiba laptop that has a screen brightness that works in reverse no matter what I do to the settings . Look what have you got to lose apart from sanity???
If it doesn't work then what have you lost?? Did you say you changed the battery?? Have you any way of checking the volts on it? I just thought too are you using the 12 or 24 hour clock system?

Maybe even a sfc and chkdsk might help

 

[jaye24]

I did adjust my BIOS time to 4 hours ahead as a work-around but I would really like to find out what is changing the time. Anyone know of debugging tools that may be able to help with this? Some way to trigger an event when the time is changed (as mentioned whatever is doing this bypasses the event log)?

When I had the BIOS time set to the current time it stayed correct even when something would change the windows time. So the battery/motherboard clock is working fine.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Jaye you could try this mate it might give you some answers http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/92394-sf-diagnostic-tool-using-troubleshooting.html

 

[not4long]

Time Resetting

Have you checked the time zone selected in the Windows 7 clock? It will automatically adjust the clock from GMT base to the time zone set in W7.