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This mobile workstation was placed into use on 9/20/15 and has had persistent problems with incorrect time.
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Using windows 7 professional change date and time settings each of these settings were used to synchronize time: time.windows.com, time.nist.gov, time-nw.nist.gov, time-a.nist.gov and time-b.nist.gov.
All of these settings failed with progressive time delays using windows 7 professional.
Time synchronization was turned off and again the mobile workstation had progressive delayed time.
Often at approximately 1 minute and 15 to 20 seconds it would reset on its own to a few seconds delay with or without time synchronization.
The CMOS RTC battery was replaced and there was no change in the time delay problem.
A second operating system was used, Ubuntu.
Ubuntu was tested for 12 hours and it displayed time ahead on the time.is web site.
The computer manufacturer replaced the motherboard and the intel chip. The bios date and time were reset.
The first three days after the motherboard replacement the time delay was at its worst with over 5 minute delays.
On the third day there was a bios update.
After the bios update the mobile workstation malfunctioned as it did before the motherboard replacement. With windows 7 professional there was progressive delayed time up to approximately 1 minute and 15 to 20 seconds and then it would somehow reset itself. The mobile workstation was then rebooted to Ubunt to remoe windows 7 professional form the picture. This time Ubuntu was ran for approximately 36 hours. The time was always ahead. The rate of time ahead with Ubuntu seemed to be slower than the rate of time behind with windows 7 professional.
Using administrative command prompt I posted the results of the w32tm /query /status commands. The first one was with time synchronization off. The second one was after multiple configure internet time settings update now clicks. Multiple sfc /scannow were ran that indicated no integrity violations.
At this moment the time delay is 4 minutes and 39.1 seconds behind.
The latest w32tm /query /status displays: Leap Indicator: 3(last minute has 61 seconds).
What does this mean: last minute has 61 seconds?
What is Stratum and how come it changed to unspecified?
What is reference Id and how come it is now unspecified?
When the configure internet and time settings is viewed it displays next synchronization 2/25/2016 and it displays the clock was successfully synchronized with the time-nw.nist.gov on 2/19/2016 at 6:19 AM.
How come the date and time indicates a successful synchronized time on 2/19/2016 6:19 AM and the last few w32tm /query /status indicate the last successful sync time was on 2/18/2016 8:11:35 AM.
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
There is something going on with the machine, you have a virus or rootkit or one of you applications is causing problems with this. Have you ever used "tweaking" or similar kind of utility on the machine? Have you ever used registry cleaners? Look in the registry and see if the W32Time key is still present.
John
The time service is not available in safe mode...but I don't think it should have returned that message, I will have to check later to see if my machine reports the same in safe mode.
John
It's still not a completely clean boot, in a clean boot state nothing other than Microsoft services should be running, I see you have HP items running. How can you know that HP software is not causing this? Have you encrypted your drive or secured hardware with HP security products? You should properly disable all your HP software otherwise you can't be sure that they aren't at the root of the problem, disabling all non Microsoft products means ALL, not just some of them.
We now know that your time service works properly, the commands are returning the expected results. About the 61 second thing, don't bother with that, it's normal and may reoccur twice a year, it's a leap second, basically it was discovered a while back that the Earth's rotation is irregular so a leap second was introduced to compensate with solar time, sort of like a leap year, the time service will at times indicate the 61 second minute, although it's never happened it could just as well report a 59 second minute. Since 1972 and up to June 30, 2015 a total of 36 seconds have been added, so now you find out that in the last 44 years or so we have all aged by an additional 36 seconds!
For further testing you can boot to Safe Mode with Networking and still connect to the internet, then you will have a more definitive answer as to whether or not software is affecting the hardware clock. Just keep in mind that the time service does not work in safe mode but that doesn't matter, you only want to know if the clock is still drifting in safe mode. After that the final test would be to run the computer only booted to the BIOS and check with an accurate clock to see if the clock still drifts with no operating systems booted, you can be darn sure that if it does it can only be a hardware or BIOS problem.
The Windows time service doesn't cause clocks to go faster or slower, all it does is synchronize the clock with a time server, it can only be as accurate as the time server but you can bet your bottom dollar that if it is syncing with a stratum-1 server it isn't setting the clock back or forward by seconds throughout the day, let alone minutes. By default the Windows time service only syncs every 7 days and most computers don't lose/gain more than a few seconds in that many days, but there are still a lot of computers that gain or lose minutes in that many days, computers being off by up to 5 seconds per day are quite common. If you must change the synchronizing frequency I advise that you use Atomic Clock Sync to do it for you, this is a small self-executable program that can make the changes for you, it won't replace the Windows Time service it will only help you configure it, I don't advise that you manually try to change these settings.
You now know that the time service is working properly in clean boot but not in normal boot so now you have to find the culprit(s) that is breaking the time service, I would suggest that you do some clean-up in your startup programs, you know how to do that. Start by uninstalling programs that you never use and then decide what is really important and what must really start when Windows is booted, I'm 99.99% sure that you don't need 40+ non Microsoft services starting up when Windows boots and you probably don't need as many Microsoft ones as what you have now. That is only on the "services" side of things, you probably don't need more than a few of the items in the "Startup" tab. You have already noticed that your Windows installation works much better in clean boot, that is the all the proof you need, a leaner start means a more efficient Windows installation and an easier one to troubleshoot when problems arise, less clutter to weed through.
Finally, if you have not done so I strongly suggest that you run a TDSSKiller scan on your machine to eliminate a rootkit as the source of the clock problem, you should run a scan before you do anything else. Rootkits can cause all kinds of strange, illusive and seemingly impossible to fix problems.
John
Just checked control panel then services then windows time. It was not seen:
This is w32tm /query /status now in safe mode:
