i can't set my hardware clock

jogurt666 · 08-05-2004, 04:22 AM

lately i've got problems with my system clock. each time i boot my system it shows different month, day and hour. i've tried to set my hardware clock by initially setting system clock using

Code:

# date MMDDhhmmCCYY

and than

Code:

# hwclock --systohc

well it sets the hardware clock properly, but after i reboot, the same problem appearers. what the hell is wrong?

jomen · 08-05-2004, 07:45 AM

could it be a problem with the battery on your mainboard being too old and having not enough power to provide for saving your cmos settings beyond the time the computer is turned off?

If its old that could be - there are other reasons for that too.
One way to check this (that I know of) is to set your hardwareclock in the bios-setup and check if it still set correctly after having turned off - waited a while - and turned back on your system.
A low battery would also make you loose all other bios settings - but I'm not sure if the system would even boot without a battery - never tried it!

jogurt666 · 08-05-2004, 09:10 AM

well the battery is rather good, i've got this mainboard no longer than 2 years, what's more time set in bios is correct. it's as if the hardware clock set random date each time i boot my system. it happens even when i just reboot.

jomen · 08-05-2004, 10:22 AM

uups

I did not try this one here but: I have in the script, which sets my hardware-clock, a different parameter - actually it seems to be just the opposite of what you are using to set your clock!

I have there a script, which sets the clock using a command like this:

"hwclock --hctosys --utc=0" -while you use "hwclock --systohc"

Is this causing your trouble?

I'm using LFS and did not make this myself (actually I'm glad if I can figure out, how these scripts work most of the time...) - but, here is my script for an example:

------------------------------------snip
#!/bin/bash
# Begin $rc_base/init.d/setclock - Setting Linux Clock

# Based on setclock script from LFS-3.1 and earlier.
# Rewritten by Gerard Beekmans - gerard@linuxfromscratch.org

source /etc/sysconfig/rc
source $rc_functions
source /etc/sysconfig/clock

CLOCKPARAMS="--hctosys"

case "$UTC" in
yes|true|1)
CLOCKPARAMS="$CLOCKPARAMS --utc"
;;
no|false|0)
CLOCKPARAMS="$CLOCKPARAMS --localtime"
;;
esac

echo "Setting clock..."
hwclock $CLOCKPARAMS
evaluate_retval

# End $rc_base/init.d/setclock

---------------------------------snip