Re: the clock stopped in F7 ?!

On Sun, 2007-08-26 at 16:13 -0700, Lonni J Friedman wrote:
On 8/26/07, Steven Stern <subscribed-lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
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On 08/26/2007 05:46 PM, Lonni J Friedman wrote:
On 8/26/07, Karl Larsen <k5di@xxxxxxxxxx> 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.

On most systems the battery only comes into play when the system power
is off. The battery is on charge the rest of the time, and if the
battery is shorted, it can load the powersupply and affect the clock and
CMOS stuff (If there is CMOS stuff any more?)

Regards,
Les H

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