[Linux-users] the system clock stopped?!?

[Leon Goldstein]

Lonni J Friedman wrote:

>I've got a Fedora 7 (x86) system that started exhibiting truly bizarre
>behavior about a week ago.  Basically, the clock stopped working.  If
>I run 'date' it shows the date/time from a few days earlier, and it
>*never* changes.  If I touch a file, it has the date/timestamp from
>the time/date in date output.  The odd thing is that this behavior
>only happens when the system sits relatively idle for a long chunk of
>time (at least 24 hours).  If i'm actively using it every day, then
>its fine.  If I reboot, then the problem goes away (and the system has
>the correct time after rebooting).
>
>The first time that this happened was last weekend (Aug 18), and I had
>to reboot it last Monday (Aug 20) to fix the problem.  Its now
>happened again.  At this moment in time, date claims that its Sat Aug
>25, even though its actually Sun Aug 26 right now.
>
>To make matters worse, the system behaves oddly when this problem
>occurs.  I suspect its because anything that relies on getting an
>accurate (or changing) clock is failing.  If I attempt to reboot
>cleanly, it just never happens.  The system acts frozen in time.
>
>I've checked dmesg & messages, and there's nothing there.  messages
>just stops logging anything around the time that the clock appears to
>have frozen.
>
>Anyone ever seen this bizarre behavior, or have any ideas what might
>be going on?
>
>  
>
I'd start by replacing the CMOS battery.  I experienced similar oddities 
after manually setting the BIOS clock to Bush time.  I had to keep 
resetting the clock until I replaced the battery.

-- 
Leon A. Goldstein

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