Error when trying to synchronize Windows 7 time

Question

I believe I had a power outage last night and when I started up my Windows 7 machine the time was all messed up (as far as I know this is not the year 13324).

This usually happens with the system time so often I have to synchronize it manually with any suggested server I can see in the dropdown options (the first one, time.windows.com usually fails though). This has always done the trick. Except this time none of the options work, I am getting either a plain error message or a timed out type error.

I checked the time service (ran services.msc and looked for it) and it is on. Restarted it anyway and the problem persists.

Although I have internet connection (checked with ping command), I can't browse the internet because I guess modern browsers block connection attempts if the system time is not synchronized. Well and not just the browsers actually, it's like if I had no internet connection aside from the ping command.

Edit: This might not have anything to do with the situation. But I was wondering if the machine clock in the motherboard could affect the issue (I guess?) so I started up my computer with Ubuntu instead and the time was perfectly fine.

Answer 1

Error when trying to synchronize Windows 7 time

when I started up my Windows 7 machine the time was all messed up (as far as I know this is not the year 13324)

On many operating systems the system time will not synchronise if it is off from the current time by a large amount.

In case there is no TOY chip or for some reason its time is more than 1000s from the server time, ntpd assumes something must be terribly wrong and the only reliable action is for the operator to intervene and set the clock by hand.

The solution is to set the time manually to a time close to the real current time. The time will then synchronise as expected with a time server.

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How NTP Operates

Most operating systems and hardware of today incorporate a time-of-year (TOY) chip to maintain the time during periods when the power is off.

• When the machine is booted, the chip is used to initialize the operating system time.
• After the machine has synchronized to a NTP server, the operating system corrects the chip from time to time.
• In case there is no TOY chip or for some reason its time is more than 1000s from the server time, ntpd assumes something must be terribly wrong and the only reliable action is for the operator to intervene and set the clock by hand.
• This causes ntpd to exit with a panic message to the system log. The -g option overrides this check and the clock will be set to the server time regardless of the chip time.
• However, and to protect against broken hardware, such as when the CMOS battery fails or the clock counter becomes defective, once the clock has been set, an error greater than 1000s will cause ntpd to exit anyway.

Source ntpd - Network Time Protocol (NTP) daemon