Harvey,

The reason your clock loses time is that it is nothing more than a 
programming loop somewhere in the operating system.  As long as nothing is 
making heavy demands on your machine, the loop runs at the correct speed, 
and your clock is accurate.  However, if something on your system makes a 
heavy demand on your CPU, the loop runs slower and the clock loses time.  I 
don't understand why system designers use this kind of loop instead of 
reading from a hardware clock that runs independently of the operating 
system.  Perhaps it goes back to a time when it was hard to build a hardware 
clock that was stable and accurate.  Today, though, we have all sorts of 
clock chips that run far more accurately than timing loops, but we still 
cling to old habits.

Steve

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Harvey Heagy" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2007 12:14
Subject: Re: question


> You're right Steve.  There are sites that XP uses to set the clock, but 
> for
> some reason, mine loses 2 minutes every once in a while.  So I have to 
> reset
> it when that happens.
> Harvey
>
>
>