Thursday, 25 October 2018

Windows 7 time keeps changing by itself

As the title suggests windows time keeps changing in random times, with random amounts. It sometimes happens every minute, sometimes it is good for hours. If I go hit synchronize with Internet time, it updates to the correct time.


Things I read/checked



  1. Disable/Enable Internet time synchronization. No help.

  2. Disable/Enable windows time service. No help.

  3. CMOS battery is dead. No it is not dead. Time changes also do happen when windows is running.

  4. Your router/modem time is wrong and effecting windows time. No, it is not wrong.

  5. Your time zone is configured incorrectly. No it is UTC+0 London

  6. You are dual booting into Hackintosh/Linux. No only Win 7 runs on this PC.

  7. You have a dodgy overclocking. I did have a high OC profile, but tried running at stock speeds with no help.

  8. Virus/Trojan. I highly doubt it. This is a very bare Windows installation for gaming. Only windows and games with Steam are installed.


Update


I can confirm, this problem does not exist, when I start the windows in Safe Mode. I've tested this by booting into safe mode. After the boot, I corrected time manually and left the pc running for a couple of hours, and the time was not changed.


Update 2


I don't know how I missed this detail (or actually if it will help) but the time resets to "that" exact time. That exact time being the first updated time.


Example:



  • I boot the PC, and after sometime it resets to (lets say) 09:33:27

  • a-) I correct the time, leave it for a period, and it jumps back to 09:33:27

  • b-) I leave it running for some time and it resets to 09:33:27 after a period (very random period I see no pattern here like hourly/every 17 minutes or anything else)

  • This keeps happening, regardless of me changing the time or not.

  • After next boot (next day?) it picks another time to reset to


More details


Here is a screenshot from Event viewer, about the time change. Keep in mind this screenshot is taken when the "Windows Time" service is disabled.


enter image description here


Event properties screenshot:


enter image description here


Details page from same event:





1
0
4
0
0
0x8000000000000010

19280


System
slayer



2014-01-25T09:38:34.500000000Z
2014-01-25T13:59:57.982183900Z



Screenshot and the details kind of implies that, windows is really thinking that this is the correct time and feel the need to update it. Although no windows service is activated to authorize this.


Any ideas?


Update 3 Problem & Solution


The problem was apparently not Windows or any other software trying to update the time.


After reading the system memory dump for an hour I found out Windows was unable to read RTC from motherboard. After failing to read the RTC state for a while, Windows thinks it is calculating the time wrong and reverts to last know RTC state.


I have no idea why this is not happening in "Safe Mode" and running windows successfully under safe mode put me in completely wrong route (Searching for an error in Software instead of hardware) The source of the fault was System BIOS (or UEFI in my case) not running at all after System POST's and boots. A simple google search for this and apparently it is a really common problem with most UEFI boards(Using an Asus-ROG board myself)


Solution advised was: Flash your UEFI and reset CMOS on standby power. Since I knew I was already on a recent version UEFI, just resetting CMOS on standby worked for me. Everything works now without a problem.


Thanks for all the input and sorry for misleading info about the problem, but I'll leave all the information posted above, hoping that it might else someone else.

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