UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Our Unix system is losing a considerable amount of time each day, and our support service company says our motherboard is the cause. They "upgraded" us 5 years ago to basically the same thing as what we had previously, and are looking to "upgrade" us again now for about $5,000... I think replacing the computer itself would be a much cheaper option... That said, I'm not convinced they haven't sabotaged the system somehow. It has a tape drive for backups and we need to be backed up every night. With the timing off, we need to manually adjust it using the date command.

Is there a way to see if the motherboard is the cause of losing time, or some other method? Any help would be much appreciated.

Is NTP an option?

We can allow outside access to the system through a separate phone line, but keep it offline and unplugged 99.9 percent of the time.. Not set up to go online either.

That said, NTP requires being online I think..

The time is maintained by a battery on the motherboard. It would be cheaper to replace the battery than the entire motherboard!

It sounds like these people are diddling your firm!

I know, that's why I'm on here. I'll check on the battery..

Any other ideas?

It might help folks if you describe your system in a little detail... OS, hardware, function, main applications, etc.

Kernel bug is not completely out of the question -- maybe even more likely. The hardware clock on the motherboard doesn't get consulted every time you call gettimeofday(), it gets checked on boot, and from there on the system calculates its own time from CPU clock ticks.