I have a HP laptop that my kid uses for some reason the clock wont keep time. I will set it and within hours it will be way off and sometimes the date also changes. I looked at the time zone that is selected and it is correct ive even done the auto update for syncing the clock with no luck. Any ideas?

how old is this laptop...it could be that the cosmos battery is weak and needs replacing.

Edited July 26, 200818 yr by jroc

the laptop is about 3 years old. What is a cosmos battery? Is that the same thing as a cmos battery?

Edited July 26, 200818 yr by kendog261

the laptop is about 3 years old. What is a cosmos battery? Is that the same thing as a cmos battery?

lol...yeah..its the same thing...my bad.

If the cmos battery was bad wouldnt the bios clock loose time also?

Yes if it was a weak CMOS battery the BIOS clock would also loose time. I guess by your question that is not the case? Perhaps make sure that it is conecting to the correct timeserver ok.

I took the laptop in to get a new cmos battery installed I will post results when I get it back.

windows links time with bios so if your windows is loosing time, so will your bios.

how can you tell? next time you loose time, reboot to old windows 98 boot disk and check the time there. you'll see the incorrect time.