About time and your PC
original post 6/19/05, updated 9/16/06
How to make your PC a more accurate timepiece :)
If you use Windows XP, your PC will as originally configured, set the time via a clock at Microsoft once a week by default if you are on the internet fairly frequently. I am fussy as regards knowing the correct time. With some PC's in a week the system time may be off by as much as 30 or more seconds! Here's how you can improve this dramatically if you like. You will or may need administrator rights to do the following in Windows XP. Be VERY careful. You can cause big time problems if you screw up your registry by not following these directions exactly.
Start the Registry Editor
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Services \ W32Time \ TimeProviders \ NtpClient Double-click the SpecialPollInterval value, and change the Base of the Value data to Decimal. At the point it should show 604800. This is how many seconds it waits between times it resynchronizes the system time which is the week I mentioned above.
Now change the Value data to 14400.
Close the registry editor
If you've done everything as indicated above your system will attempt to resynchronize your PC's clock every 4 hours, presuming you will be on the internet enough, which should give almost any PC VERY accurate time.
Perhaps you would like an easier way to have windows let you know what date and time it is. If so, I recommend TClockEX version 1.4.2. It can be downloaded from:
http://www.rcis.co.za/dale/tclockex/index.htm
If you try this program, I like to set mine to show the time and date as:
Sun Jun 19 2005 2:06:33 AM
The configuration to get TClockEX to do this:
ddd MMM dd yyyy h:mm:ss tt
How to make your PC a more accurate timepiece :)
If you use Windows XP, your PC will as originally configured, set the time via a clock at Microsoft once a week by default if you are on the internet fairly frequently. I am fussy as regards knowing the correct time. With some PC's in a week the system time may be off by as much as 30 or more seconds! Here's how you can improve this dramatically if you like. You will or may need administrator rights to do the following in Windows XP. Be VERY careful. You can cause big time problems if you screw up your registry by not following these directions exactly.
Start the Registry Editor
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Services \ W32Time \ TimeProviders \ NtpClient Double-click the SpecialPollInterval value, and change the Base of the Value data to Decimal. At the point it should show 604800. This is how many seconds it waits between times it resynchronizes the system time which is the week I mentioned above.
Now change the Value data to 14400.
Close the registry editor
If you've done everything as indicated above your system will attempt to resynchronize your PC's clock every 4 hours, presuming you will be on the internet enough, which should give almost any PC VERY accurate time.
Perhaps you would like an easier way to have windows let you know what date and time it is. If so, I recommend TClockEX version 1.4.2. It can be downloaded from:
http://www.rcis.co.za/dale/tclockex/index.htm
If you try this program, I like to set mine to show the time and date as:
Sun Jun 19 2005 2:06:33 AM
The configuration to get TClockEX to do this:
ddd MMM dd yyyy h:mm:ss tt
posted by rhoadesb | 7:16 AM
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