[lug] non-linear loss of time

[Nate Duehr]

> I hadn't thought of the power supply because it is fairly new.  But that
> doesn't mean it isn't the culprit.  As for the oscillator, I was
> thinking if something along the lines of this was failing, it would be
> degrading the time in a linear fashion.  Am I just off on this?

The problem with this whole thing is... you could chase it for a very long
time at the component level.  To pay someone to do this would cost many
times more than a new motherboard, and definitely more than a new CMOS
battery.  ;-)

If you haven't tried the CMOS battery and it's replaceable... that one's
easy.  Some older motherboards did use a soldered in battery in (usually) a
black rectangular housing that if you're handy with a soldering iron, you
can replace them... but they were designed to last the "lifetime" of the
motherboard.  (GRIN)

Most stuff now uses some form of button cell, usually readily available at
Rat Shack for way over what you'd pay if you bought them bulk from a
supplier.  (Heck you can find them cheaper in a kid's toy brand new at
Toys-R-Us because of volume, if you know the right toy to buy... same thing
with a lot of electronics components nowadays -- LED's out of toys are
especially cheap but you have to be willing to make the time sacrifice to go
get the toys, disassemble them, and take out the LED's.  GRIN... weird how
economies work out that way sometimes...)

There are a lot of failure modes that could cause the software clock to
drift.  But if the software clock is wandering around and the hardware clock
is not... well, that points to software mucking around with the clock.  You
never mentioned if the hardware clock is drifting too?  (Remember once a
Linux box is up, it no longer references the CMOS clock -- it keeps its own.
If both are wandering, something's very wrong.)

You mentioned that you're running NTP... could perhaps NTP be writing bad
information to its adjustment file and then chasing its own tail around if
you have that stuff turned on?  What is that other tool, umm... can't
remember adjtimex or something like that?  Someone may have fiddled with
that too.

No experience with the time adjusters like that program -- never had to deal
with them -- but logically it would be worth checking those too, since
checking those is free.  :-)

I hate to say it but if I had a motherboard that was doing that and I spent
more than an hour or so on it before pitching it, I'd be surprised... sorry
landfill, here comes more computer waste.  Of course I'd probably slap the
drive in another "spare" machine to see if it did it in both before chucking
the other one.  I know that's not always an option.

Let us know what you find (curiosity killed the cat) if you pursue it.

Nate Duehr, nate at natetech.com