Corrupted Clock....Help please!

[Alberts Growbag]

Have bought a Medion MT93 (PC MT5) from PC world (UK) with an Athlon 1.6/ViaKT266(VT8366)chipset/MSI 6382 motherboard/256mbDDRAM/Running WinXP home.

At no time since owning this machine has the clock ever kept the same time after being shut down overnight. It will either go a few minutes out, or revert to 0000 Jan 1st 2000. Anything up to six hours out on other occasions.

PC world have replaced the BIOS battery. I have reverted to factory settings from the recovery disk, updated the 4 in 1 driver from the VIA web site, also unchecked the 'synchronise with the web' option in date/time, all to no avail.

PC world are now talking about replacing the motherboard. Does anyone have any idea's before I give up and accept the fact that I am going to have to set the clock every time I fire up?

Probably unrelated, but the machine also refuses to stay in standby/hibernate. Booting itself up after ten minutes. I suspect the culprit is Zone Alarm. The problem resolves when this is uninstalled.(I also found a conflict preventing the machine standing by when 'Web ferret' was installed).

PC world have been as helpful as they can but frankly admit that as the machine is a 'one off' compilation made to compete pricewise with a supermarket offer they don't have much information to support it with. The lad's on the phone line also seem to be a bit slow on WinXP, but then aren't we all.

Medion won't speak to me as the machine is supported by PC world.

I would appreciate any help out there!

Thanks in anticipation.

[slj]

I had a similar clock problem a couple of years ago. Changing the battery etc did no good. When the motherboard was changed the problem was resolved and no more clock problems.

If they want to change the motherboard ar their cost, let them.

Hope you sort the problem out soon.

[fobotcso]

Tiresome and frustrating though it must be, I can only agree that it must be the MB. Probably a temperature related fault in the clock chip so that when it cools down overnight the timing goes to pot.

That's useful news about Medion; I certainly won't buy products of or deal with a company that won't speak to the end user who pays the money, even though they would be unlikely to be able to help.

[sky9]

Get yourself plugged into an atomic clock on the internet. You will at least be correct some of the time. I use Dimension 4 (free) but there are many options if you try Google.

[Alberts Growbag]

Thanks guy's, I'll call PCW and tell them to change the motherboard.

Any more idea's?

[bblank]

About Zone Alarm with WinXP, there appear to be several teething problems. A message yesterday on a security newsgroup states that

"A few weeks ago as I restarted my PC, I was treated to a BSOD within one of ZAP's modules (I believe the module name started with "VSDATA"; could be wrong) and upon restart, I was treated to a second BSOD indicating that my registry was corrupted. I reinstalled XP without ZAP. The latest Windows Update contained a compatibility fix for ZAP. Has this fixed anything for anybody, or is ZAP just another roll of the dice on the XP craps table?"

ZAP = Zone Alarm Pro, BSOD = blue screen of death. No answers as yet. In particular, the ZAP support page does not seem to address any XP "issues" as of now.

[Hamrah]

I have to confess that I have been using ZAP with Windows XP for over a month without a problem.

H

[Alberts Growbag]

I found that installing zone alarm (Free version) from a bridging CD (From my laptop running ME)prevented WinXP from staying in standby. The machine would reboot after ten/fifteen minutes.

Reinstalling direct from a download seems to have cured the problem.

However 'Webferret' from the bridging disk actually brought up a warning that my keyboard driver was preventing the machine from entering standby. Pratting about with that cost me greatly as I managed to press 'OK' on installing a usb keyboard driver accidentally (Mines Ps2). That lost me control of the keyboard and the mouse. Luckily the recovery disk took me back to factory settings, but I lost some data that was awaiting backup.

Apart from the clock problem, which PC world seem to think is the motherboard, (new one on order) my new arrival seems to be OK.

I do think that Microshaft want their arses blowtorched for releasing WinXP so soon before any manufactures have had time to build drivers for it. I have had to throw out a perfectly good AGFA 1212P scanner as AGFA have given up trying to write a driver for XP. Installing the old one cost me a BSOD the first night of ownership. A warning on their website would have warned me, but nothing there at all to say that their older machines will crash your XP installation. A phone call to their TS dept. confirmed the case.