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Grex Micros Item 183: My computer has no clock, and it's not an XT.
Entered by omni on Wed Feb 25 23:22:24 UTC 1998:

    I have a interesting problem that I just discovered today. One of my 386's
has no clock. At least the diagnostic software says so. What can be done about
this? Is this a bad chip, or am I missing something?

5 responses total.

#1 of 5 by keesan on Thu Feb 26 03:09:06 1998:

Oh, that doesn't mean anything, it will just be in the setup program, the CMOS
setup has the clock.  Don't believe diagnostic programs.  J Deigert

#2 of 5 by mwg on Thu Feb 26 04:24:30 1998:

Does your computer report the time when you type TIME at a DOS prompt? 
Diagnostics can say what they like, but I'm fairly certain that DOS would
unstable to inoperable without a clock.

#3 of 5 by omni on Thu Feb 26 05:33:50 1998:

  Let me be more specific. It does keep time. It just doesn't keep earth time.
My computer thinks it's still Feb 23. The diagnostics I was using is called
check-it pro. Very intensive diagnostics, which is why I posted this item.

#4 of 5 by davel on Thu Feb 26 11:52:52 1998:

At one point there was a bug in a lot of BIOSes, which prevented the date from
rolling over if the computer was kept running through more than one midnight.
(That is, it rolled over once, but not a second time.)  I don't recall more
details, but this sounds like that could be the cause.  Are you leaving it
running?  Does the date advance if you *don't* leave it running through
midnight?

(Is this my old 386, Jim?  If so, I almost never left it running overnight;
but I know about that BIOS bug because it happened to me with *some* former
computer, & it might well have been that one for all I recall.  It was quite
a few years ago, & might have been an even earlier computer.)

#5 of 5 by omni on Thu Feb 26 18:10:01 1998:

  It is, Dave, and I will find out what is making this thing act this way.
It's mildly annoying to have a computer that thinks it's on Mars. I discussed
this with a friend, and he was thinking it could be a bad chip or something
like that. It is not a big problem.
  I don't as a rule leave my computers running. I believe in low electric
bills, and that is not possible when you have a 386 on all the time, plus
whatever else is running, too.

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