wrote in message
...
On Tue, 11 Aug 2009 10:45:42 +0000 (UTC), root
wrote:

The damned thing loses about 20 minutes/day and has
so since the machine was new about 3 years ago.

My guess is that it isn't fixable, but maybe you
have some ideas.

TIA.
Since you are on this newsgroup, fixing it should be easy. All it
requires is a little soldering. I just checked two fairly modern
motherboards and located the crystal that is associated with the CMOS
clock. Look for a small cylinder lying flat to the board in the
neightborhood of the CMOS battery. That is the crystal that controls
the clock. The error you are seeing is well outside the normal
tolerances for a 'good' (or even a cheap) crystal. Replace it.

If you want high accuracy, it would be necessary to adjust the
frequency by adjusting the parallel capacitor, but normally you should
have an error of less than a minute a week with an uncalibrated
crystal.

PlainBill



I think they are similar to watch crystals and are susceptible to vibration,
make sure its glued down.