Motherboard loses time?

[NDJeff]

I have an Asus P4P800 Deluxe that loses time, and fast, like several hours over the course of a day. I replaced the board because of the annoyance and my brother is using that replacement still today in his computer. After sitting in my closet for over a year, I tried resurrecting the board for a cheap spare-parts Linux box. I popped a used Celeron in it and it runs just as good as ever, except the time issue. The battery was removed for over a year, and replaced witha new one, CMOS cleared, and flashed to the newest BIOS rev.
Any chance there is a replaceable component to fix this, or am I SOL? This is a real nice mobo other than the messed up clock, I hate to see it go to waste.

[Rainbow]

Re: Motherboard loses time?

It loses time when turned on? That looks like a software problem.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Motherboard loses time?

Install some time calibration software and tell it to update every 10 mins if you have always on broadband ;-)

[Rainbow]

Re: Motherboard loses time?

ntpd in Linux works fine. It runs constantly.

[gonzo0815]

Re: Motherboard loses time?

May be the RTC chip is going bad. If you find an real time clock chip like an dalas or so you can replace them, but probabely this rtc is included in the chipset or the smc all in one chip. Than there are not so many options to fix it. But probalby only some extern components are bad. But if only rtc filas and cmos will stay then i think ther must be an seperate rtc chip there.

[Rainbow]

Re: Motherboard loses time?

RTC keeps time only when the PC is turned off. When turned on, OS maintains time on its own.

[tiresias]

Re: Motherboard loses time?

NDJeff,

Could you check in which of these states this phenomenon of "slowing down of the clock" occurs?

1. Only within a particular operating system.
2. Also when the machine is powered on, but with no OS loaded (in the "BIOS" options, for example)
3. Even when the PSU is powered off (including 5Vsb) - and thus when the RTC is battery-sustained only.

[NDJeff]

Re: Motherboard loses time?

Hmm I may have to experiment, but it loses time in both Linux and Windows XP. I belive it also loses time with the machine shut down but not turned off. I am not sure if it does with the PSU unplugged, I will try that experiment next.

[NEOAethyr]

Re: Motherboard loses time?

Try a better battery, 2032 type.

Also yeah, the rtc is in play when the rig is off.

When it's on these come into play:
CPU.
BIOS.
IRQ controller.

The irq controlelr is liekly to be a 8253 like chip.
Which are easy to program.
Though some info is very very hard to locate, but I know how to program both the tREF and the irq0 timer.
I've done so succesfully.

Irq0 however gets reset when booting windows, even winpe based os'ed I'm afraid.

I think it may have to do with the floppy being accessed.
Which freaking blows, because I'd liek to have a double speed irq0, I can handle the bandwith loss because I can up tREF a huge amount without issues.
That and my fsb is high.


Other possible problems can come from addin cards.
Which actually reprogram the irq0 timer(except they use vector tables mods too).
Like I can(but no vector tables).
This is bad though when a card relies on having control on this, very bad.
Many problems.
Possible cards that are to be looked at with suspicion are capter cards, pci ones.

I'd also the other ones as well to single out if it's a card causing it.

The only way I know of to re-program the irq0 timer and have it stick, is to redo the irq vector tables.
Which I have not tried nor have any experience with at all :\.
This is bios stuff, and why the bios comes into play.
Not totally detailed but that's probably as good as you need to really know about that stuff.


So, look at the battery.
The addin cards.
Then the cpu.


Edit:
Oh and the psu...
Psu rail levels can have huge effects in some odd places that you'de never expect...
They can effect latency like no other.


This problem is universal btw.
Happens from time to time from the old days to this day.
Even I have a slight clock issue, but it's not notcieable even after days to the normal person, I can tell in secs if it's off.
It's how it counts, if it's hesitating, or once in a while double speed, it's off.

On the amd 32bit systems, barton cores.
This problem mostly affects the desktop ver's, the mobiles don't have much of a problem with this.
Perhaps down to the quality of the core, ie the apic controller is likely to be much better on the mobiles.
Though I disable apic, it's not the cause for the issue, but still....
There's somethig to the cpu.

Peopel that have the same board as me, have complained about this.
I've seen maybe 3 people complain about to high of speed timer.
One of which replaced his desktop barton with a mobile barton and the issue went away.


I'm sorta suprised to see such an issue on intel.
But in the day on the p1's and before,this issue was there as well so I guess it's not a surprise.
Remember the bios has a key to play in this too since it's the one initally programming this timer and making sure it's maintained correctly, and cannot be overwritting(vectors).

[MD Willington]

Re: Motherboard loses time?

Issue is even prevalent on AMD systems, saw a similar question posted at the corporate forum, even used to happen on some ECS socket A mainboards...

[Rainbow]

Re: Motherboard loses time?

The most common problem is M$ and their crap - time synchronization in Windows XP.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Motherboard loses time?

It's less likely to be the CMOS battery if the other BIOS settings stick.

One of my socket A motherboards has the problem with the time not always sticking. But I never got a CMOS checksum error message and the other BIOS settings were still intact!

[stretch0069]

Re: Motherboard loses time?

Also when the machine is powered on, but with no OS loaded (in the "BIOS" options, for example)

yeah...this is would be my first check......to see if its losing the time in BIOS.


Off Topic- SEE!!!! All you doubters out there!!!! There ARE other people in ND.

(i'm from Jamestown )

[NEOAethyr]

Re: Motherboard loses time?

Oui, I know I was tired when I posted but still.

Posible problems:

Battery, if it's low quality, does'nt matter if you get cmos checksum errors or not.

Addin cards.
These can reprogram irq0 and setup vectors with onboard roms.
Most likely cards to do this are crappy pci based capture cards.
Remove them all to be sure.

Cpu.
You may have to replace it with a better batch.

Bios.
The bios is a main factor, it's the one that's supposed to setup irq0, then add vectors for it.
Could also be the chip type for the bios, some are better then others.
Wacky things happen with poor qulity chips, winbond is poor quality.

Psu.
One of the most inportant parts of all, but the others are just as inportant.
If the psu is not consistant, and does'nt supply clean power, you can have those issue along with latency issues.


If you cannot fix the issue.
Then this is what happens:

Slow clock:
Means you spend more time proccesing small things.
Like the start menu lol.
However, big things, that need more memory bandwith, get more cpu time, so these end up faster by exactly the % that is off by irq0.

Fast clock.
Means you spend less time proccessing the smal things.
So the majority of windows is gonna be faster by exactly the % that irq0 is off.
However, when it comes to the big hard to proccess thing, it's gonna take longer because you're not giving it enough cpu time.

If your clock is random, then this is not cool.

I prefer 2x faster clocks, or 1 and a 1/2 faster.
This makes everythign faster for the most part, much faster, I could spend alot less time going though the small stuff.
You can modify tREF, the main clock for ram, giving the ram more time to proccess, which can compensate for this.
If you got alot of ram bandwith, it can compensate for a fast clock.
Never completly, heck no, but still.


The best?
A dynamic clock, but there is no such thing.
Or multible clocks, or no clock(those would be nice).

Irq0 speed has the greatest inpact in emulation speed, if you do that sort of thing.
Lots of smallt hings to proccess that might otherwise get you under 60fps, a fas clock and you can go way over that.
A slow clock, you can proccess those big things and get over 60fps, but the small things slow down to much, making everythign that's small, like sinple windows menu's, a pain to go through.


The 8253 controller:

IRQ00 / INT08, same thing, int08 is asm like talk I guess you might say.
It can be programmed very easy, to specs, or to whatever you wish.
However, without modding the vector tables, it gets reset while booting windows.
I've tried this many times, I don't know the vector tabels though so I never modded those.
You can boot windows from say dos by using int19, which is exit to boot device.

tREF, again I can be modified with ease.
However, you don't need to mod the vector tables with this one, it sticks.
Meaning you can boot windows with it, check bandwith and everything.
To high and of course you'll get lockups, but also you may have floppy drive issues.
To low and instant lockup, lowest stable is the most stable.
highest stable(to some extent, it'll drop off if you go to far) is the higest bandwith.
tREF is the main refresh timer.
The longer tREF is setup to, the longer you have to use your ram before it needs to refresh.

The rest of the chip is all junk mostly, just onboard speaker stuff.


Get it now?
The bios sets that up, if it messes this up then that's a problem.

Batteries can cause wierd issues even if it looks good, can maybe be the issue.
Psu's, well nuf said on that one.
Addin cards, sometimes they want to change that irq0 timer for there own sake (sorta common I guess for cheapy capture cards) , this is not cool.
Cpu, seems to the solution for this sort of issue sometimes.

What else was I gonna say...
Oh yeah, irq0 is not the irq for time.
The time irq is a diffrent one, which feeds off from irq0.
All irq's feed off from irq0.

I hope you understand, as well as the rest of you guys .
This problem is somewhat rare, but does happen offen enough.
I know all about it because of emulation, then I figuered out how to program the chip and read it back(kinda know how to read it back) by looking for info for along time.
The programming info is not the easiest to find but it's out there.
I do have asm for it, for nasm.
Like i said though, I cannot fix the main irq without it getting messed up again.
Which is a shame really, something I wanted to add to my bios after I figuered out how to mod post jump table stuff.
I still need to learn vector tables.

So try everythign you can above, if you can't fix it...
Then deal with it I suppose.
Just know everything that is timed ont he system is gonna be wacked out.
Gaming, everything.
General programs will be allright though since they don't need to be timed correctly, they just get slow and fast, etc.

[gekko]

Re: Motherboard loses time?

quartz crystal off spec?

[kc8adu]

Re: Motherboard loses time?

quartz crystal off spec?

good point.
i have replaced many in vintage led watches.
it should be 32.768 khz.

[NDJeff]

Re: Motherboard loses time?

OK, sorry for not getting back sooner I haven't gotten a whole lot of research done, robbed parts from this spare-parts heap to build a different backup machine

To fill in a few details: I have changed the battery to a brand new Energizer 2032, I had to because when this board was shelved I robbed the original battery for another rig.
The time issue persists when changing everything but the mobo, because that is what I have done. The rest of the rig that this board once powered is happily chugging away for my brother, and has been for the last year or so. Originally I was using a P4 2.8 and 1Gb of Geil RAM, right now it has 1 512 meg stick of OCZ and a 2.53 celery I picked up secondhand to play around with.
The board has been reflashed to the newest bios available.

First I guess I will let it sit in the bios screen overnight and see what it does. If time is correct in the AM I will shut the system down and see what happens. I am thinking I may have been mistaken, and the time only gets messed up when I power down.
A messed up bios chip would be real easy to replace, and is definitely a possibility, as this was the board I wet my feet overclocking with
i will report back when I know a bit more, got it pieced back together again lol.

off topic:
Stretch, good to see another ND guy online - guess the avatar shoulda gave me a hint ;p We gotta do something stuck indoors for 6 months

[Rainbow]

Re: Motherboard loses time?

BIOS chip is OK if the board works.
If it loses time when powered off, it's probably the crystal. You can get it from almost any fried board. Once I put crystal from a dead board into digital watch to fix losing time

[gekko]

Re: Motherboard loses time?

i had a board that didn't post because of the crystal. i poked the leads and board came to life. *evil laugh*

isn't it a pain to solder a tiny crystal?

[Rainbow]

Re: Motherboard loses time?

There are at least two crystals on most boards - one is like this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...lator_4MHz.jpg
or this
http://www.opamp-electronics.com/cat...tal_004075.gif
That's for clock generator that generates CPU, bus and other system clocks. Without that, it can't work.
Then second one is like this:
http://www.codix.hu/nagyker/products/crystal/dt38.jpg
32768Hz for clock - the same type is used in digital watch