The clock in the taskbar does not keep time well.  It always gets ahead of the actual time.  It is set to auto synchronize with time.nist.gov but it won't do it.  I have also tryed to set it with time.microsoft.com and that doesn't seem to work either.  Is there anything I can do to keep it at the right time?

It gets off of time when you leave it at non-sync? Hm.

How often do you turn your computer off? How long do you leave it off? How old is your computer?

Your BIOS battery (AKA CMOS battery)  might be dying. You can probably pick one up at walmart, it looks like one of them watch batteries, supersized, and sits right on your mobo held down by a metal thingy.

[img]http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:mNqGhzl-8K8J:www.autdirect.co.uk/acatalog/coin_cell.jpg[/img]

EDIT -
May find this helpful.

[quote author=Joe link=topic=13507.msg137486#msg137486 date=1134513868]
It gets off of time when you leave it at non-sync? Hm.

How often do you turn your computer off? How long do you leave it off? How old is your computer?

Your BIOS battery (AKA CMOS battery)  might be dying. You can probably pick one up at walmart, it looks like one of them watch batteries, supersized, and sits right on your mobo held down by a metal thingy.

[img]http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:mNqGhzl-8K8J:www.autdirect.co.uk/acatalog/coin_cell.jpg[/img]
[/quote]

What? I doubt that's the reason why he can't sync with those time servers.

I can't sync either. I don't remember those having ever worked.

How often do you turn your computer off?
Once or twice a week, I don't use it much though

How long do you leave it off?
Generally I just restart

How old is your computer?
around a year

Your BIOS battery (AKA CMOS battery)  might be dying
That isn't the problem

When you click the Update Now button, your clock should be synchronized immediately. If it fails, it might be for one of the following reasons:

1. You are not connected to the Internet. Establish an Internet connection before you attempt to synchronize your clock.

2. Your personal or network firewall prevents clock synchronization. Most corporate and organizational firewalls will block time synchronization, as do some personal firewalls. Home users should read the firewall documentation for information about unblocking network time protocol (NTP). You should be able to synchronize your clock if you switch to Windows Firewall.

3. The Internet time server is too busy or is temporarily unavailable. If this is the case, try synchronizing your clock later, or update it manually by double-clicking the clock on the taskbar. You can also try using a different time server.

4. The time shown on your computer is too different from the current time on the Internet time server. Internet time servers might not synchronize your clock if your computer's time is off by more than 15 hours. To synchronize the time properly, ensure that the date and time settings are set close to your current time in the Date and Time Properties in Control Panel.

Try These.

Try time.windows.com

[quote]When you click the Update Now button, your clock should be synchronized immediately. If it fails, it might be for one of the following reasons:[/quote]
It does

[quote]Internet time servers might not synchronize your clock if your computer's time is off by more than 15 hours. To synchronize the time properly, ensure that the date and time settings are set close to your current time in the Date and Time Properties in Control Panel.[/quote]
It usally gets off around 10 minutes before I fix it.

[quote] Try time.windows.com[/quote]
I have, it still doesn't auto synch.

Check your BIOS settings and set the clock time in there. Also maybe youshould flash your BIOS and update it, be careful though.

[quote author=Forged link=topic=13507.msg137612#msg137612 date=1134580354]
[quote]When you click the Update Now button, your clock should be synchronized immediately. If it fails, it might be for one of the following reasons:[/quote]
It does
[/quote]

Are you saying it works when you click "Update Now", but that it does not sync by itself? Perhaps you have a personal firewall blocking packets sent by the time sync service but not packets sent by the gui?

[quote author=Adron link=topic=13507.msg137618#msg137618 date=1134582752]
Are you saying it works when you click "Update Now", but that it does not sync by itself? Perhaps you have a personal firewall blocking packets sent by the time sync service but not packets sent by the gui?
[/quote]

Where is this Update Now button?

timedate.cpl -> "Internet Time" tab. Windows XP and above, iirc.

It would also help if you could tell us what OS your are using, if you are behind a firewall, or in a network of computers of some kind.

Check out Windows Time Service
[code]w32tm /?[/code]
or
[code]net time /?[/code]

Or use a third party time sync program, there are a few out there, Atomic PC I believe is one type. Also make sure the appropriate ports are open on your firewall.

And check when it says it last synchronized. And run a packet capture on it when it tries to sync.

It does sync when I hit update now, it just will not auto sync.

I am using xp pro with no service packs and my firewall is off.

When does it say it is going to auto sync next? Be around for that time and run a packet capture...

Update your service pack, it might fix your problem

I always hate to suggest service pack updates, especially because SP2 is so much...  but at the same time, it's scary that you're running XP without any and service packs.

About your timing, though: how long does it take for your clock to get 10 minutes off?  Are we talking days/weeks, or minutes/hours?

I once had a problem with the timing chip on a 486 DX/2 where the internal clock effectively ran twice as fast as real time.  I don't think it damaged anything permanently, but it didn't allow me to really use the computer for anything (*ALL* of the clock pulses were doubled), and it very quickly destablized the system.

I also used to have a similar problem to this with Windows 9x-based machines; when doing something hardware-intensive, it was not uncommon for my clock to miss its interrupts and update.  I haven't experienced this on an NT-based machine, so I hesitate to believe that this is the case (evidently the Clock process is of higher importance in the NT kernel), and I don't think you're experiencing the same phenomenon (your clock is actually going faster).

it takes a couple of hours to get off time. I realized a couple of days ago it is because it auto syncs like once a week.  I assumed it would do it every hour or so.

[quote author=Forged link=topic=13507.msg139155#msg139155 date=1135455557]
it takes a couple of hours to get off time. I realized a couple of days ago it is because it auto syncs like once a week.  I assumed it would do it every hour or so.
[/quote]

It still shouldn't be drifing that much.  I have a fairly old system that only syncs on my command (been several months now), and it's only drifted a minute or so.

I have the same problem. My computer clock is usually 4-6 minutes off of what time it actually is, and it's a pain. I'll manually sync it and then a day or so later it will be off again.

RTC sounds like it's getting messed up or something, happens when I do a hard shutdown (flip the switch :])