Ray Davison wrote:
Lee wrote:
I set the clock, and all is well.
How far off was your clock?
It had never been set. It was off by years. Auto set was active but
had not yet set. I knew it was off but was not concerned. I thought it
was just a clock. FF knew better. Maybe someone can get that in SM.
As a general rule, you want an accurate clock, because there are many
clock-sensitive things on your computer. These include things like
background activities that are run on schedule, log file entries, SSL
certificate validation, and much more. Even your email relies on having
an accurate clock
Arguably, showing the current time to the user the least important
function of the clock.
Just yesterday, I was updating packages on a Linux virtual machine, and
somehow, the VM's clock had not gotten synchronized with the host, and
it was a month or so behind. When I ran the package manager for
updates, I had problems because the time on the system clock was so far
off, and the package manager was complaining that current packages were
invalid because the time stamps were too far in the future. When I
resynchronized the the clock, then the updates ran properly.
Any modern computer with Internet connectivity should have a process
that regularly synchronizes against an Internet time server. In
Windows, even if DOS-based Windows didn't have that, I believe NT
systems (dating all the way back to 3.51) have always had that -- and it
certainly was in XP.
If a system clock isn't accurate within milliseconds of the time
delivered by a time server, the most common reason is that a system
battery is nearly dead. That's not the main battery used on laptops,
but the CMOS battery that is also used to keep BIOS settings when the
computer is powered off.
Smith
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