I can think of two possiblities.
1) It actually is the battery. Just because the computer is new doesn't mean
the motherboard didn't sit on a shelf for a while.
2) It could possibly be temperature dependent. The real time clocks on PCs
use a low frequency, typically very cheap crystal to set the time, crystals
are very sensitive to temperature and change frequency as the temperature
changes. This especially true for the cheap crystals. You might want to put
a thermometer in the PC and see what the temperature is thoughout the
evening and if it appears that is lower than it should be then you could
look at getting a higher quality crystal to replace the cheap one on the
motherboard.
-- Craig
> -----Original Message-----
> From: sf-bay-tac-bounces@No-Spam [mailto:sf-bay-tac-bounces@No-Spam]On
> Behalf Of Mike J. Shade
> Sent: Monday, April 28, 2003 8:23 PM
> To: sf-bay-tac@No-Spam; TAC-imaging@No-Spam
> Subject: [TAC] Computer time problem
>
>
> Running a 1200GTO with The Sky, Tpoint, Maxim, ST8E, CFW8 over a
> network. There are two computers one in the observatory and one in the
> house. At the start of an evening will update both clocks via an
> Internet
> time service. The mount will slew fine and point well but then I notice
> that the observatory clock is "slipping" in that it is slower than the
> house computer and it will be perhaps several minutes SLOW over
> say 1/2 an
> hour or so. Pointing will suffer as well.
>
> Anyone have any idea what the heck is going on here? The
> computer is less
> than a month old so I don't suspect the battery for the clock and it
> shouldn't make any difference if it is plugged in and all that. It seems
> as if this is a new problem and have tried several programs to
> set the time.
>
> Could it be that the system is in stand by mode during the day or
> something
> weird like that and this is annoying the time signature?
>
> Oh, Windows XP Professional...
>
> Mike J. Shade: mshade@No-Spam
> Sonoita Hills Observatory, Sonoita Arizona
>
> See work done at the observatory: http://c3po.cochise.cc.az.us/astro
> under the "photographs and images" panel on the left of the screen.
>
> "I like the dark, it's cheap." E. B. Srooge
>
>
>
>