Windows 7 time keeps changing by itself

Question

As the title suggests windows time keeps changing in random times, with random amounts. It sometimes happens every minute, sometimes it is good for hours. If I go hit synchronize with Internet time, it updates to the correct time.

Things I read/checked

1. Disable/Enable Internet time synchronization. No help.
2. Disable/Enable windows time service. No help.
3. CMOS battery is dead. No it is not dead. Time changes also do happen when windows is running.
4. Your router/modem time is wrong and effecting windows time. No, it is not wrong.
5. Your time zone is configured incorrectly. No it is UTC+0 London
6. You are dual booting into Hackintosh/Linux. No only Win 7 runs on this PC.
7. You have a dodgy overclocking. I did have a high OC profile, but tried running at stock speeds with no help.
8. Virus/Trojan. I highly doubt it. This is a very bare Windows installation for gaming. Only windows and games with Steam are installed.

Update

I can confirm, this problem does not exist, when I start the windows in Safe Mode. I've tested this by booting into safe mode. After the boot, I corrected time manually and left the pc running for a couple of hours, and the time was not changed.

Update 2

I don't know how I missed this detail (or actually if it will help) but the time resets to "that" exact time. That exact time being the first updated time.

Example:

• I boot the PC, and after sometime it resets to (lets say) 09:33:27
• a-) I correct the time, leave it for a period, and it jumps back to 09:33:27
• b-) I leave it running for some time and it resets to 09:33:27 after a period (very random period I see no pattern here like hourly/every 17 minutes or anything else)
• This keeps happening, regardless of me changing the time or not.
• After next boot (next day?) it picks another time to reset to

More details

Here is a screenshot from Event viewer, about the time change. Keep in mind this screenshot is taken when the "Windows Time" service is disabled.

Event properties screenshot:

Details page from same event:

<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
  <Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-General" Guid="{A68CA8B7-004F-D7B6-A698-07E2DE0F1F5D}" /> 
  <EventID>1</EventID> 
  <Version>0</Version> 
  <Level>4</Level> 
  <Task>0</Task> 
  <Opcode>0</Opcode> 
  <Keywords>0x8000000000000010</Keywords> 
  <TimeCreated SystemTime="2014-01-25T09:38:34.500000000Z" /> 
  <EventRecordID>19280</EventRecordID> 
  <Correlation /> 
  <Execution ProcessID="4" ThreadID="64" /> 
  <Channel>System</Channel> 
  <Computer>slayer</Computer> 
  <Security UserID="S-1-5-18" /> 
</System>
<EventData>
  <Data Name="NewTime">2014-01-25T09:38:34.500000000Z</Data> 
  <Data Name="OldTime">2014-01-25T13:59:57.982183900Z</Data> 
</EventData>
</Event>

Screenshot and the details kind of implies that, windows is really thinking that this is the correct time and feel the need to update it. Although no windows service is activated to authorize this.

Any ideas?

Update 3 Problem & Solution

The problem was apparently not Windows or any other software trying to update the time.

After reading the system memory dump for an hour I found out Windows was unable to read RTC from motherboard. After failing to read the RTC state for a while, Windows thinks it is calculating the time wrong and reverts to last know RTC state.

I have no idea why this is not happening in "Safe Mode" and running windows successfully under safe mode put me in completely wrong route (Searching for an error in Software instead of hardware) The source of the fault was System BIOS (or UEFI in my case) not running at all after System POST's and boots. A simple google search for this and apparently it is a really common problem with most UEFI boards(Using an Asus-ROG board myself)

Solution advised was: Flash your UEFI and reset CMOS on standby power. Since I knew I was already on a recent version UEFI, just resetting CMOS on standby worked for me. Everything works now without a problem.

Thanks for all the input and sorry for misleading info about the problem, but I'll leave all the information posted above, hoping that it might else someone else.

Answer 1

Try this command:

bcdedit /set {current} useplatformclock yes

I found it around the Internet, but no source is available for me. I had the same problem in night hours, now - after this command - it is gone. System restart is required.

Answer 2

Doubt this is the answer to this user's problem as they've fixed it as above. However there is a common cause of exactly these symptoms in dual boot Windows/Linux systems: the two OS treat the CMOS clock differently and fight over setting the clock the way they want (Linux to UTC doing daylight savings etc in software, Windows to local time so the software and hardware clocks are the same).

This has a simple solution: tell one of them to use the other's default behaviour.

Windows: Set a new DWORD RealTimeIsUniversal to 1 in

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation

and then make sure you've installed this from Windows Update: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2922223

Linux: set UTC=false in /etc/sysconfig/clock

Obviously don't do both of these!

Answer 3

There are two types of this problem. The first one resets to the base date & time which for most modern computers is 2008. Even with internet time sync disabled there are software such as Nero burning rom and MSinstall exec that will try to set the time for an install or run. Older versions of dotnet will also do this and some games install these old versions hidden in background. A recent install of an older version of printshop did just that. I ran tracemon and it was traced back to the dotnet 1.x that printshop installed internally.

Look at any older software gaming or otherwise you might have installed and look at the dotnet activity log as well.

The is also a correlation with SSL or internet secure server that if the date is older than one month (windows 7 & 8) that it will also cause unauthorized time and date changes and windows security will go into auto lockout and set the time and date back to the minimal default to protect itself.

I hope this helps.

Answer 4

Try creating a regular task to synchronize your time.

• In Start/Cortana type "Task"
• Right click "Task Scheduler" and Run as Administrator
• Navigate to Task Scheduler Library/Microsoft/Windows/Time Synchronization in the left directory pane under Task Scheduler (Local)
• Here you may see a task "ForceSynchronizeTime" or "SynchronizeTime". Right click and go to properties
• Click on the "Triggers" tab and Edit or add New trigger
• Then you can set "Begin the Task" to "At log on"
• Leave everything else unchecked except "Enabled"

The original post has a slightly different configuration (he suggests checking "At Startup" and "Repeat task every: 5 minutes").

Also, I had a small issue with being unable to change the trigger, so I exported the "ForceSynchronizeTime" task and then renamed it "FixClock" and imported the new task into the folder alongside the old one. I then edited the trigger for "FixClock".

I used this trick for Windows 7 and Windows 10. All credit to anthony82. See his original post here:

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Operating-System-and-Recovery/The-time-on-your-clock-keeps-changing-to-the-wrong-time/td-p/2510559

[edited to include step-by-step instructions]

Answer 5

For my case, Dell optiplex 990, losing 2-4 times its time over a period of 4 hours, I did all as described, adjusting the time, restarting the time service, time zone ok, etc. My solution is as above in the "Update 3 Problem & Solution" Reset the CMOS (disconnect power cable, open box, remove jumper from Passwrd RST, put it on RTCRST, wait 10sec, plugged in without switching on the power cable, remove jumper RTCRST and put it back in its original location.) My good Hint, check in the bios parameter (F2), in the time and date adjustment parameter, if you see the seconds incremented. If not, you have the same trouble as me. Once this action is done, the seconds start to increment again, This indicates the RTC is again in correct function.

Answer 6

I had this problem as well and I could not figure out what changed the time. For me it was the Hyper-V Time Synchronization Service.

Either stop the service or change the time on the host machine and then try to manually change it on the client. Time is now updated as intended.

Answer 7

Uninstall any third-party clock applications installed on your computer and check if that brings about any change in the clock timing.

Let’s first check for the status of Windows Time and restart the same. check if that makes any difference.

1. Click Start, type services.msc and hit ENTER.
2. Locate Windows Time.
3. Right-click and select Restart.

Answer 8

Have you check the timezone server value. it should be time.windows.com.

Second option- i would suggest you to restart windows time service from services.msc.

Do you have any third-party clock applications installed on your computer? If yes then please uninstall the application.

Answer 9

If flashing doesn't work, it might be the cmos battery. I've never had that problem in all the computers I've owned for years, but several times I've had friends have to replace their cmos battery. It's tiny, like one inside a watch. Some are bigger/thinner like the cr2032s you get for a snark guitar tuner.

Hope that helped. I'm hunting this one down on my computer too, but I recently started the additional problems of it constantly telling me I don't have enough memory in C: to run fairly simple apps and knowing I have a laptop battery that's worked its way down very close to 0 minutes of charge. I use this one plugged in at home all the time now and have a newer laptop I use everywhere else.

So if it's my cmos battery I'll actually have to weigh two options. Replacing versus keeping it dead. Downside of course is the clock being wrong. Upside is I can use one of my old "geeksquad savior discs" on this box without any of the usual workaround hassles. ;)

Answer 10

You might want to check your regional settings.

Does Windows 7 have perhaps a bad UTC offset setting? Perhaps it is calculating the time incorrectly because of that. Check your Timezone and (less obviously) your Regional settings in Control Panel.

Answer found here: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-desktop/windows-7-keeps-changing-my-time/6c01463d-a557-4964-a106-60232391a1cd