System time reset, dirty hack included

chrono325 · n00b Joined: 13 Jul 2004 Posts: 39

I recently had the problem that my system time would set itself to December 13, 1901. This would occur every couple minutes, and the screen would flash black when it reset. Aside from being annoying, it would mess up all sorts of things like ssl websites, portage, and so on. After learning regexps and sed, I hacked together a quick script to sync the system time with the Real Time Clock, which is not affected when a reset occurs. Here it is, in all of its n00bish glory:

angoraspruce

You certainly have a unique problem. Myself, I wouldn't rule out hardware problems despite the fact that your mb clock keeps the proper time, especially because your screen goes blank when the time gets reset. Strange.

As an aside, assuming that you have network connection, the most accurate way for the average person to reset the system time is to use ntpdate, usually found in '/usr/sbin/'. And then to keep your system on time you would run '/usr/sbin/ntpd', however an abrupt resetting of your system time to one that's over a hundred years off would shut the deamon down in its tracks. (In fact, just a half minute or so being off would do it!)

Best regards

chrono325 · n00b Joined: 13 Jul 2004 Posts: 39

well, I think I know why the screen blanks, I have Xorg turn off the monitor after a certain amount of time (20 min I think), and I guess 100 years > 20 min so it is trying to power down the monitor.

To make things better, the rtc is now losing lots of time, according to my system clock, it is now 2:00 PM Dec 14 2001. Better than 1901, but could still use some work. Especially frustrating as I had the Mobo replaced last September, took Via a month to get it back to me. :twisted:

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chrono325 · n00b Joined: 13 Jul 2004 Posts: 39

Okay, it wasnt the motherboard, I got a new one and there is still the same problem. I doubt two different motherboards would just *happen* to have the same problem. Any idea what it could be? I am not quite ready to emerge -e system yet, so I would like to know whether there could be a program screwing things up. ntpd seems powerless to stop it, and ntp-client doesnt launch for some reason (cannot connect to any timeservers, more on that later.) a quick ps aux yields('frochild' is the name of my regular user sorry for the giant text block)

das_leid · Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2005 11:48 pm Post subject: Strange

as I have this problem, too. It happens to a server which runs only for fun as a foldingathome crunsher and serving some files. But it happens not every couple of minutes but only around 10 o'clock pm and 0 o'clock am. Time gets reset to 1901 and my updatedb scripts are running endless. Strange. Seems I got something nasty the last time I synchronized. BTW: IMHO, it's nothing with the kernel. I had a very old one on the server (2.6.8.x) and a newer one (2.6.11) - it happened with both.

OK : Seems like I have the same prob with webmin as these guys do : https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-275528-highlight-1901.html
Let's see if it works.
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