Any idea what might cause this report from Boinc?

8/7/2011 10:18:16 PM | | System clock was turned backwards; clearing timeouts

No I did not reset the clock..

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Janice

A failing CMOS battery on your mainboard, or an extreme CPU heat event come to mind. I' double check your cooling and go grab a new battery.

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I had something funky going on here too. My earliest tasks are now at the bottom. Had to do a few suspends for a team challenge. Never seen this before tho.

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No I did not reset the clock..

Is that host connected to a time server? Half a minute correction in the "wrong" direction is enough to trigger that event (I think).

Gruß,
Gundolf

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Computer sind nicht alles im Leben. (Kleiner Scherz)

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No I did not reset the clock..

Is that host connected to a time server? Half a minute correction in the "wrong" direction is enough to trigger that event (I think).

Gruß,
Gundolf

no.. but it is connected to an HDMI 3D display that WANTS an internet connection.... I am testing now but it kind of started that when I installed software from "Origin"(associated with EA games)

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Janice

I believe Windows7 automatically syncs to a time server. Might have just been adjusting for the first time since powering it up.

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I believe Windows7 automatically syncs to a time server. Might have just been adjusting for the first time since powering it up.

repeated the problem several times. No overheat issues apparent, and I am not understanding how the cmos battery could be an issue with a constantly powered on system,although I am not ruling out a motherboard issue. System is less than a week old. home brew.

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Janice

I believe Windows7 automatically syncs to a time server. Might have just been adjusting for the first time since powering it up.

repeated the problem several times. No overheat issues apparent, and I am not understanding how the cmos battery could be an issue with a constantly powered on system,although I am not ruling out a motherboard issue. System is less than a week old. home brew.

If I remember correctly, the bios needs the CMOS battery for its clock. This clock is what was used when the system was initially installed. While the system is up, the two clocks sync up so that they carry the same time.

Even though your system has only been up for a week, the CMOS battery may have depleted power or is defective, it happens and there is no telling how long the mb sat on the shelve. I had the same condition several years ago and noticed the problem after entering the bios upon a machine recycle, the bios clock was off. I replaced the battery and have not had a time problem since and the machine is still running 24/7.

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I don't buy computers, I build them!!

I'm getting an error message with xp's windows time synch -- "An error occured when Windows was synchronzing with time.windows.com." First occurred yesterday with regular scheduled update, and is recurring now with manual updates. Not sure if Win 7 is the same, but with XP the weekly synch is a default - you have to turn it off. Not sure you have same problem if it is repeating without manual updates.

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Another Fred
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I will not rule that out. Win 7 is the operating system, and a new CMOS battery is a lot easier than an RMA....

I have turned off the new program for the moment, and have not seen a repeat.

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Janice

I'm getting an error message with xp's windows time synch -- "An error occured when Windows was synchronzing with time.windows.com." First occurred yesterday with regular scheduled update, and is recurring now with manual updates. Not sure if Win 7 is the same, but with XP the weekly synch is a default - you have to turn it off. Not sure you have same problem if it is repeating without manual updates.

I've always found time.windows.com to be one of the less reliable of the internet time servers. In cases where it really matters, such as on a Domain Controller where the single internet synchronisation is (automatically) used to set the system time for all domain-connected workstations, I prefer to choose a dedicated service from a list such as the Public NTP Time Server Lists - or in my case, the UK equivalent, to reduce latency on the synch - and set the server to get time from there.

Program conflict confirmed..
Origin software is conflicting with Boinc and/or the system clock. Everything was running great until I restarted the program, then BAM.. Boinc crash as well.

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Janice

Program conflict confirmed..
Origin software is conflicting with Boinc and/or the system clock. Everything was running great until I restarted the program, then BAM.. Boinc crash as well.

I just recently found on 1 2008 x64 system that after upgrading to .net 4 the system would randomly lockup while running BOINC. Removing .net solved the issue as it wasn't really required. Oddly enough I can reproduce it on the one system, but no others. Cursed computers and their quirky personalities.

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still working on this little quirk. I am running test with the program closed, to confirm a 24 hour run without a clock reset. I tried a windows uninstall/reinstall.. but the problem persists(intermittent, takes a while to show up).

Next step is their full manual clean uninstall/re-install.

Why they would be messing with the system clock is beyond me.

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Janice

still working on this little quirk. I am running test with the program closed, to confirm a 24 hour run without a clock reset. I tried a windows uninstall/reinstall.. but the problem persists(intermittent, takes a while to show up).

Next step is their full manual clean uninstall/re-install.

Why they would be messing with the system clock is beyond me.

What you you see when the conflict is happening? Is the system clock just drifting, slowly or quickly (and in which direction)? Or is it making sudden large jumps?

still working on this little quirk. I am running test with the program closed, to confirm a 24 hour run without a clock reset. I tried a windows uninstall/reinstall.. but the problem persists(intermittent, takes a while to show up).

Next step is their full manual clean uninstall/re-install.

Why they would be messing with the system clock is beyond me.

What you you see when the conflict is happening? Is the system clock just drifting, slowly or quickly (and in which direction)? Or is it making sudden large jumps?

Edit: after testing with EA Games, I was able to duplicate the problem by manually resetting the computer time.
I have not noticed the clock change.. the amount of staring at the bottom corner of the screen to see it is beyond me. What I do see is Boinc respond
with "aha the clock has been pushed back.. so I am killing all of these timed things on you" followed by a bunch of tasks restarting/aborting. So far this has only occured while the Origin program(launcher for EA games... "Origin Beta" should be seen as a warning) is open. No game running is needed to cause the failure. It can be seen quite clearly in the boinc logs when it has occured.. a bit of a screen flash seems to happen as well.

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Janice

still working on this little quirk. I am running test with the program closed, to confirm a 24 hour run without a clock reset. I tried a windows uninstall/reinstall.. but the problem persists(intermittent, takes a while to show up).

Next step is their full manual clean uninstall/re-install.

Why they would be messing with the system clock is beyond me.

What you you see when the conflict is happening? Is the system clock just drifting, slowly or quickly (and in which direction)? Or is it making sudden large jumps?

Edit: after testing with EA Games, I was able to duplicate the problem by manually resetting the computer time.
I have not noticed the clock change.. the amount of staring at the bottom corner of the screen to see it is beyond me. What I do see is Boinc respond
with "aha the clock has been pushed back.. so I am killing all of these timed things on you" followed by a bunch of tasks restarting/aborting. So far this has only occured while the Origin program(launcher for EA games... "Origin Beta" should be seen as a warning) is open. No game running is needed to cause the failure. It can be seen quite clearly in the boinc logs when it has occured.. a bit of a screen flash seems to happen as well.

It might be possible to set one of the BOINC debug logging flags which writes a message regularly to the message/event log. Most of them are horribly verbose, but <checkpoint_debug> might do it. That would allow you to see what BOINC thinks the system time is, once per minute, and you might be able to see what changes happen, and when, without staring at the corner of the screen. Then you would have some information for a fault ticket to throw back at EA Games.

Edit: after testing with EA Games, I was able to duplicate the problem by manually resetting the computer time.
<SNIP>

Thanks for that warning. I was going to install Origin in the next few days. I'll hold off for a while.

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</Tazz>

Had this problem with EA Games in the past. With XP wWhen running certain games in Pogo clock drifted enough to notice. Not all tho so never found out what was happening. Not recurring under Windows 7 64bit

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Edit: after testing with EA Games, I was able to duplicate the problem by manually resetting the computer time.

The BOINC message isn't actually a problem, of itself - just gives you information that something odd has happened, and the BOINC has coped with it.

I think you're actually seeing a fixed version - it was much worse before. Have a read of my trac ticket [trac]#588[/trac]. In a way, BOINC has done you a favour by helping you pick up a problem in EA Games.