Annoying time problem.

[Scooby73466]

I am running a 64 bit Windows 8.1 desktop with an SSD and it seems to have developed an annoying but non-critical fault over the last week. The problem is the system time shown on my taskbar.

Quite often it falls completely out of sync. It’s not every day but for the past week on most days when I boot it up in the morning it is hours slow. Anything between 2 and 6 hours behind the correct time. And today it even did it during the day. I re-set the time correctly this morning and by about 4.00pm it was showing 2 hours behind the time. The minutes change as well as the hours. The rest of the pc is working as it should.

When I click on the time in the task bar I get the following and it is also where I change the time when I have to correct it.

Can anyone tell me what is going wrong please ? Any help and/or advice will be greatly appreciated.

 

[Bree]

Quite often it falls completely out of sync. It’s not every day but for the past week on most days when I boot it up in the morning it is hours slow. Anything between 2 and 6 hours behind the correct time.

The most likely suspect is that the cmos battery needs changing.

Try booting straight to the bios tomorrow morning, before going into Windows, see what time and date it shows. If that is already 'hours slow' before you even get into Windows then the cmos battery didn't have enough charge in it to keep the real time clock running while shut down over night.

 

[Scooby73466]

The most likely suspect is that the cmos battery needs changing.

Try booting straight to the bios tomorrow morning, before going into Windows, see what time and date it shows. If that is already 'hours slow' before you even get into Windows then the cmos battery didn't have enough charge in it to keep the real time clock running while shut down over night.

Thank you very much for that. I wondered if there was some kind of battery in the pc that remembers such things when the pc is turned off. And I apologise for my ignorance but could you tell me how to boot straight into the BIOS instead of letting it go into Windows please ? When I started out with computers we were still working from the DOS prompt and so I should know but just can't figure it out. !!

 

[Scooby73466]

I found out how to get into the BIOS on my HP pc and tomorrow morning I will boot straight into there. I presume at that stage I look at the clock ? What I don't understand is why my pc doesn't update automatically once it is connected to the Internet. I assumed that by the message on my 2nd image above that it should do this using "time.windows.com" ?

 

[Bree]

What I don't understand is why my pc doesn't update automatically once it is connected to the Internet. I assumed that by the message on my 2nd image above that it should do this using "time.windows.com" ?

Windows by default syncs the time once a week. This is a scheduled task. When, or how often you start up your PC has no influence on when it checks the time, it will be one week after the last successful check.

If you click the 'Change settings...' button in your 2nd image you'll find an 'Update now' button that will let you sync on demand.

 

[Scooby73466]

Thank you very much for that. I did actually "have a play" earlier today and I did exactly what you have suggested and the time was corrected immediately. And I also think that you were right when you said that my CMOS battery needs changing. My pc is a HP Pavillion which my Son bought on my behalf and then he fitted the SSD in it for me. Unfortunately he is very busy at the moment and lives some way away and so I am going to try and find out which bettery it is and how easy it would be to fit. I have done quite a bit of searching on YT and they seem relatively easy to fit on quite a lot of PCs.

Thanks again for your help. It is very much appreciated.

 

[Bree]

Unfortunately he is very busy at the moment and lives some way away and so I am going to try and find out which bettery it is and how easy it would be to fit.

It's not too urgent, a PC will continue to work with a flat cmos battery. If it gets really flat it may start warning you at boot, and suggest that you may want to enter the bios and check its settings. But there should also be an option to skip this and continue booting to Windows.

 

[Scooby73466]

It's not too urgent, a PC will continue to work with a flat cmos battery. If it gets really flat it may start warning you at boot, and suggest that you may want to enter the bios and check its settings. But there should also be an option to skip this and continue booting to Windows.

You are being unbelievably helpful. Thank you so much. It was good to know that it isn't that urgent but I feel that I ought to make moves towards replacing the battery.
I am trying to find out which CMOS battery is in my pc but I'm not finding it very easy. I think it is probably a CR2032. My pc details are as follows :

Thanks again.

 

[Bree]

I am trying to find out which CMOS battery is in my pc but I'm not finding it very easy. I think it is probably a CR2032. My pc details are as follows :

HP don't make it easy, they seem to have a policy of purging service manuals for older machines from their support site.

Everything I can find says you are correct, it's a CR2032. There a picture of it's location in this post:

HP Pavilion 500 BiosPW Or Cmos reset issue.

Can U guide me hiw to reset (or recover) the Bios Password or CMOS. I tried removing the BIOS battery but it doesn't resets. I also trued changing the jumpers but I dont know that I did that in the propper way as there are 2 jumpers on my mother board. And I also can't figure out that which one...

h30434.www3.hp.com

 

[Scooby73466]

HP don't make it easy, they seem to have a policy of purging service manuals for older machines from their support site.

Everything I can find says you are correct, it's a CR2032. There a picture of it's location in this post:

HP Pavilion 500 BiosPW Or Cmos reset issue.

Can U guide me hiw to reset (or recover) the Bios Password or CMOS. I tried removing the BIOS battery but it doesn't resets. I also trued changing the jumpers but I dont know that I did that in the propper way as there are 2 jumpers on my mother board. And I also can't figure out that which one...

h30434.www3.hp.com

Thank you again for your help and for that link. I thought that from the videos that I have seen on YT that it was relatively easy to change the CMOS battery but is there more to it than that ? i.e. Changing the BIOS password etc.

 

[Bree]

I have seen on YT that it was relatively easy to change the CMOS battery but is there more to it than that ? i.e. Changing the BIOS password etc.

Not something I've needed to do yet. These are HP's generic instructions. They make no mention of any special precautions. Seems the process may reset the bios, so you may want to take a note of any of your settings that you have changed from their default. It will probably clear the bios password too.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/ish_9463411-9463456-16

 

[Scooby73466]

Not something I've needed to do yet. These are HP's generic instructions. They make no mention of any special precautions. Seems the process may reset the bios, so you may want to take a note of any of your settings that you have changed from their default. It will probably clear the bios password too.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/ish_9463411-9463456-16

Thank you very much for that. Quite a bit to digest there and so I will have a read later.