Win10 PC Time Accuracy

[Ted Myers]

Hello, Everytime I check my laptop clock it never gives the correct time. This is being compared to my Radio Controlled wall clock.
At time ???? of posting, clock is 20 seconds slow.

[HansV]

By default, Windows synchronizes your computer's time with an internet time server once a week. If the internal clock of your computer is not very accurate, it will diverge from the correct time over the week.

You can synchronize manually:
- Click on the time in the Windows taskbar.
- Click 'Date and time settings'.
- Click 'Sync now'.

You can also decrease the time interval for the automatic synchronization:
- Click the Start button.
- Type regedit and press Enter.
- Allow RegEdit to make changes to your system.
- Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\TimeProviders\NtpClient.
- In the right-hand pane, you should see an entry named SpecialPollInterval, with a value of 604800.
- This is the interval in seconds (7 days x 24 hours x 60 minutes x 60 seconds = 604800).
- Double-click the entry to change its value.
- For example: once a day = 86400 seconds; once per hour = 3600 seconds.
- Close RegEdit and restart your computer to make the change effective.

[Ted Myers]

Hello Hans, I noticed the time was inaccurate as I have the background set to slideshow every 30 minutes. It never seems to change on the hour & half hour (my Win7 pc did) so I accessed the settings, synced it and after it was doneI seen it to be 20 seconds slow.
Just rechecked, it's now 5 seconds fast.

[HansV]

Your motherboard has a clock chip that controls your computer's time, perhaps it's slightly wonky.
Or the time server used to synchronize is off. You might try a different one:
- Click the Start button or press the Windows key.
- Type timedate.cpl and press Enter.
- Activate the 'Internet time' tab.
- Click 'Change settings...'
- You can select from several servers.

S3470.png

[Ted Myers]

This is the setting I'm using. will try others later.

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[Ted Myers]

Hello, just used the only other item available, clock no ok. Many thanks.

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[John Gray]

Ted: although it probably makes minimal difference, for my NTP time server I use uk.pool.ntp.org (type it in where you see the others offered), which points to one of four time servers chosen from about 200 IPv4 UK-based NTP time servers.

[Ted Myers]

Hello John, greatly appreciate you post which shall be noted for the future if required. Alls well at present and I very rarely try to fix things that are not broken.

[Argus]

As John, since not in the USA, or perhaps even then, I've changed my NTP server for Windows (to something local (the ones responsible for timekeeping in SE)).

For further reading see, for example:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/hel ... onize-with
https://kb.meinbergglobal.com/kb/time_s ... ntp_client

As mentioned by Hans there is a chip on the motherboard etc. and on old computers, as you know, when the battery ran out you could lose time settings etc. But in this connected world most things check for something providing time & date every now and then, and sometimes more often. Of course, there can be temp. problems with a NTP server, but there are other rare troubles closer. See link below for some explanation; it mentions the same manual method as the links above.

https://www.thewindowsclub.com/ntp-clie ... windows-10

[Ted Myers]

Thanks Argus. just rechecked the time, it is now 5 secs slow.
My post @ 16.15 should have read clock now ok I missed printing the letter w.

[Argus]

Yes, I noticed that; just thought I could add some comments for reference (since I don't think I've mentioned how I did my NTP setup with the w32time command).

(By the "time" I got home your third reply & John's were added to the thread; I decided to reply as if they weren't apart from the first words.)

[Ted Myers]

I keep promising to re read my post before posting it.