Not unknown problem with /dev/rtc

carbono · 10-12-2005, 10:41 AM

Dear Linux community,

I have a problem with the clock on my desktop (Debian 2.4.27-2-386). Every time I boot up, my computer has its local time set to 4 hours late, relative to the actual time. If I:

Code:

hwclock --show

I get:

Code:

select() to /dev/rtc to wait for clock tick timed out

I changed the local time using the GUI (Adjust Date & Time, in Gnome) and then I tried:

Code:

hwclock --systohc

I got the same "seletc() ..." message.

I googled and find a few solution to this problem but none specific to Debian.

When I reboot, I can read that the system time tries to take the hardware time as a reference but fails (i.e. same "select() ..." message). But yet, I can read that the system time is set right. Then, after some other messages on the boot screen, it retries to adjust to the hardware time, again without success and with the same "select() ..." message. And then I can finally read that the system time is set wrong (i.e. 4 hours late).

How do I fix that? I could post the bootup messages but I don't know how or where to get them

Thanks for ideas.

Gui

r0b0 · 10-13-2005, 08:04 AM

Is that some kind of an unusual hardware you have? It looks like linux is not able to read/write to your hardware clock.
If you have network connectivity, you could forget the hardware clock and use NTP protocol to synchronize time.
Install 'ntp-*' packages using aptitude and your clock will be synchronized up to a milisecond.