the clock stopped in F7 ?!
Lonni J Friedman
netllama at gmail.com
Sun Aug 26 23:13:48 UTC 2007
On 8/26/07, Steven Stern <subscribed-lists at sterndata.com> wrote:
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> On 08/26/2007 05:46 PM, Lonni J Friedman wrote:
> > On 8/26/07, Karl Larsen <k5di at zianet.com> wrote:
> >> 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?
> >>>
> >>>
> >> There is a battery on your motherboard and it has a clock that needs
> >> the battery. Linux checks the computer battery every so often so check
> >> that battery and replace if needed. I can cause all your problems.
> >
> > If it was the CMOS battery, why would it be working fine for days,
> > stop working, then start working again after a reboot?
> >
> > Also, I've never heard of Linux being capable of checking the CMOS
> > battery. What specifically is doing this check?
> >
> > Additionally, the CMOS battery is only needed when the system is
> > powered down and/or doesn't have external power. It certainly isn't
> > used to keep the system clock running while the system is running on
> > external power.
> >
> > I appreciate your feedback, but what you're saying really doesn't make
> > any sense.
> >
>
> Does your system go into a suspended mode when not being actively used
> for some time?
No, it doesn't. I should note that I've been using this same system
for nearly a year now, and its been rock solid stable until last
weekend.
>
> (The real test for the CMOS is to see what the time is on boot in BIOS.
> When Fedora boots, it will synch with a time server if ntpd is enabled.
> However, I agree this is not likely to be a battery issue.)
The time is accurate when the system POSTs (and in the SBIOS), so I'm
pretty confident that this isn't the CMOS battery dying.
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