Dell Laptop won't keep correct time

[jch2273]

I have a question.....Does anyone know why my Dell Laptop will not keep the correct time. It has lost exactly an hour twice in the last week. It is just a couple weeks shy of being a year old....so my warranty will run out soon.
Anybody have any ideas....thanks

 

[Nick]

I don't know much about laptops but if they have a system battery like a desktop does then their could be a problem with that.

 

[Lexluethar]

If it is still under warranty send it in for repair. Most likely culprit is the CMOS battery.

 

[Nick]

ah so they do, I thought they possibly replied on the laptop's battery.

 

[aspire]

Some laptops have a cmos battery, some don't.

I had an old iBook and it didn't so when you swapped batteries you had to do it fast so that the capacitor on the board that supplied power when you swapped batteries didn't die causing you to lose all you bios settings...

 

[Alvin.C]

Hello,

Nearly all laptops these days have a CMOS battery (a coin cell / button cell battery). It's usually pretty straightforward to replace.

What laptop do you have? The user guide / service manual for your laptop should tell if you have one, where it is and how to replace it.

 

[KurrentEweser]

As long as the main battery has a usable charge and is in the laptop, the cmos battery is out of the circuit and does not discharge. In other words the clock is powered by the main battery as long as it has a charge.

I've never had a system that kept perfect time while running Windows.

In XP or Vista run regedit.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\TimeProviders\NtpClient\

Set "SpecialPollInterval" to 5460 (21600 seconds in decimal)

This is will tell the Windows Time service to check an internet time server every 6 hours instead of the default once a week.

 

[Lexluethar]

Or just go into your clock settings and do what kurrent said. But that is also a good idea to just have it check the the Internet for time whenever possible (unless you aren't connected to the Internet).

I still say send it in for repair since it is still under warranty.

 

[erkster]

um your not forgetting that we just had daylights saving time right?