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    How often does Windows do time syncs?

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by Peon, Jun 4, 2015.

  1. Peon

    Peon Notebook Virtuoso

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    Lately, I've noticed that some of my PCs are off by as much as 2 minutes, relative to an NTP server. Doing a w32tm /resync fixes the problem temporarily, but eventually the clock starts noticeably drifting again...
     
    Peon, Jun 4, 2015
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  2. pete962

    pete962 Notebook Evangelist

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    I'm not sure 100%, but I think it's synchronizetime task, which you can see in Task Schedular and default is once a week, but you can change it to anything you want and set additional triggers. This is in Win 7, I don't use Win 8, but probably similar. If time is drifting a lot, maybe that little CMOS battery is dying.
     
    pete962, Jun 4, 2015
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  3. ratinox

    ratinox Notebook Deity

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    The real time clocks on Intel boxes range from just this side of terrible to a sundial is more precise.

    I exaggerate. But not much.

    Two minutes per week is pretty bad. Not the worst I've seen but bad enough to cause problems. If like me you need better accuracy than what Windows offers then find a simple NTP client (really, the protocol is called "simple NTP"). There are a few out there. I've used NetTime for many years but don't take that as an endorsement.

    If you need better accuracy than what you get from SNTP then you're probably best off with the full NTP stack. Meinberg maintain Windows builds of the official NTP sources. Check for links at ntp.org.
     
    ratinox, Jun 4, 2015
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    RCB likes this.