Help me out! Windows 98SE Clock Losing Time......

I built a PC for a friend of mine about a year ago. It's a P4 1.8Ghz running Windows 98SE and has a RAID controller onboard.

Everytime the computer is on for more than a day the Windows clock loses up to 1 hour of time. I know this is a documented in Microsoft's database, but so far we haven't been able to find a fix for it. The answer seems to be a progam such as a virus scanner using CPU time. I think in his case it's the RAID controller in combination with some accounting software.

I know upgrading to 2K/XP would fix the problem, however that's not a possibility due to software compatibility. I also thought about running a 3rd party client that would keep sync via a time server, but it's not connected to the internet on a regular basis.

Any other suggestions? I just can't come up with a solution. He thinks using a PCI RAID controller would help but I think that would be just as CPU intense if not more than the onboard HighPoint.

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Comments

Ricka182

I may be wrong, but I don't think the RAID, nor a processor controls the system clock. Have you checked the CMOS battery?

matts5074

RAID and / or anything using CPU time will cause Windows 9x to lose time. ACPI is also mentioned, but that is disabled and the problem still occurs. The CMOS keeps the correct time and everytime the system is booted the time is reset correctly. The problem is after it's booted and running it's Windows job to keep up with the time and it loses after a few hours of being on. The correct time is important because the machine has several scheduled tasks. These tasks are also pretty CPU intense, which only speed up the time loss each time they run.

I've basically ran out of things to suggest and I don't like not having answers.

Here's what Microsoft has to say:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=http://support.microsoft.com:80/support/kb/articles/Q189/7/06.ASP&NoWebContent=1

Keep the suggestions coming.

Ricka182

Ok. Can you monitor the processor? If you have so many cpu-intensive apps running, that seems to be the problem. Maybe a second processor, more memory?? How about the latest drivers for the Raid controller?

matts5074

Unfortunatly I can't monitor the CPU, it's 500+ miles away, but my friend has PC Anywhere access.

I called ABIT and asked if they knew of the problem, they could only recommend upgrading to 2K/XP and trying new drivers from HighPoint which we tried to no avail.

I'm going to have a hard time conviencing them they need a second CPU which would also require a new motherboard.

They are pretty much at their budget for the year and for their application 1.8Ghz is plenty, it's just the fact that when the CPU is @ 100% Windows loses time. It makes sense to me that 2 CPUs would still lose time, just half as much. That is even if Windows 98SE can support multiple CPUs (I didn't think it could).

The machine has 1GB of PC2700 DDR. 1GB for what they're running is overkill. Basically everyone is pointing to me to fix it........ I just can't find *any* solution. It seems that Microsoft knows of the problem, but never fixed it. Trying to get a business to understand that is near impossible.

Thanks for the responses..... I'm willing to listen to anything at this point. lol

Ricka182

I think I was sleeping when I suggested dual-procs for W98. The only other suggestion would be to uninstall the virus software, and/or any other programs you suspect of causing the problem, starting with the most recent application installed. Then, one by one, reinstall them and check the performance. I think it has to be something similar to that. The CPU should never be at 100% consistently.

matts5074

Thanks for the suggestions Rick.

They insist they just can't live without a anti-virus program along with all of their scheduled tasks. It's used for accounting mostly and it just has alot of disk activity and alot of scheduled tasks. For now they're power cycling it every night at 2AM, but even then it loses a few hours and that's enough to throw everything off.

I just can't beleive Microsoft hasn't fixed this problem. The only thing I could think of was SCSI drives, but even then I don't think it would completely fix the problem since it all comes down to Windows 9x.

I'm afraid that after this I won't be contracted to build anymore computers for them.

Thanks Microsoft.

RussS

ummmm - Running a server with 98SE. Shoot dood, forget that and for petes sake don't blame Microsoft for your problem.

matts5074

RussS wrote:

ummmm - Running a server with 98SE. Shoot dood, forget that and for petes sake don't blame Microsoft for your problem.

Um..... if you'd read above you'd see that it isn't my computer and that Windows 98 is a requirement of the software they are using so they do not have a choice on what OS to use. I didn't pick their software, just built it to their specs and installed the OS they wanted.

But thanks for the help (not).

RussS

Firstly I will apologise for my previous incomplete post. I am currently remorely administering several machines by console and I inadvertantly shut down the one I was posting from.

Um..... if you'd read above you'd see that it isn't my computer and that Windows 98 is a requirement of the software they are using so they do not have a choice on what OS to use. I didn't pick their software, just built it to their specs and installed the OS they wanted.

I did read it dood. However I can not believe that W98 was their only option, and personally I think they are just being tight and put you in a no-win situation. I also think that you were very naive in building this machine without fully explaining possible consequences.
No matter that RAID is able to be run on a FAT machine you will find that the resourses it uses make the proposition rather unstable. The reason behind this is the way that 9X uses a paging file more than the FAT situation, but since 9X is FAT then you have to accept that you will run into problems. If their application will not run on W2K, then you would be better running it on NTFS by using XP Pro and running the app in compatibility mode.
AT a pinch you could set up the OS in one partition on a drive with the swap file in a seperate partition and then stripe the data over your remaining dries, but that would still not be ideal.
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shp

Solved those problems two years ago by updating Windows 98se at the Microsoft updates site. There is a particular update to solve the 100% CPU usage. I am writing this on a server using an updated Windows 98se, no AV but Zone Alarm fire wall. Win 98 must be updated to correct some math entries which are wrong. I will locate said MS article and post a link.