[mdlug] 2 very different gigabyte motherboards not keeping good time

[Jeff Hanson]

Check CMOS battery voltage, should be 3V or greater.  Replace it if too
weak.  Commonly CR2032 which are available at Walmart for $5/pair.  The RTC
runs off it, at least when PSU power isn't available.  Also check the time
in the BIOS to see if it is creeping or not.  Normally the RTC should be
set to UTC and let the OS adjust for local time.


On Mon, Apr 14, 2014 at 10:32 PM, Dan Pritts <danno at dogcheese.net> wrote:

> Hi all -
>
> For several years I’ve run an old 1.9GHz 64-bit athlon, with a gigabyte
> motherboard.  It never kept good time, whether running under freeBSD (8.x
> then 9.x) or linux (centos6).  NTP couldn’t keep it synced, I gave up and
> put in a 5-minute cron job with an ntpdate.  I updated to whatever BIOS
> they maxed out with but no help.
>
> I recently upgraded the system to a “pentium” haswell chip.  I love how
> they use the pentium name still, what, 15 years later?  Anyway, once again,
> based on reputation and the fact that the other motherboard never puked, I
> bought a gigabyte motherboard.  When I installed the system, I updated the
> BIOS.
>
> Guess what, it doesn’t keep time, and NTP can’t keep up.
>
> I do not have the system on a UPS or anything else that might muck with
> the power frequency coming in.  Just plugged in to the wall, DTE power in
> the middle of ann arbor.
>
> I did use the same power supply.  I can’t remember the brand, but it is a
> good quality 80+ unit, not the cheapest piece of junk I could find.
>
> Any thoughts on what could be causing this?  I’m left with two thoughts,
> PSU or just crappy gigabyte timekeeping.  PSU seems unlikely - the system
> has otherwise been very stable.  bad gigabyte time also seems unlikely, but
> what do i know.
>
> thanks
> danno
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