When a PC boots, the operating system reports the incorrect day and year for a few minutes before it eventually displays the correct time. Which of the following should the technician do to fix this…

The correct answer is A. Open the PC and replace the CMOS battery. The CMOS battery (typically a CR2032 coin cell) powers the Real-Time Clock (RTC) chip on the motherboard when the system is unplugged. A failing battery can no longer maintain accurate time during power-off periods, causing the clock to drift or reset to a default value. Once…

Hardware

Question

When a PC boots, the operating system reports the incorrect day and year for a few minutes before it eventually displays the correct time. Which of the following should the technician do to fix this issue?

Options

AOpen the PC and replace the CMOS battery
BChange the PC to use NTP for time synchronization
CChange the time zone from UTC to the correct time zone
DSet the date and time manually in the BIOS

How the community answered

(48 responses)

A
92% (44)
B
2% (1)
C
2% (1)
D
4% (2)

Explanation

The CMOS battery (typically a CR2032 coin cell) powers the Real-Time Clock (RTC) chip on the motherboard when the system is unplugged. A failing battery can no longer maintain accurate time during power-off periods, causing the clock to drift or reset to a default value. Once Windows boots, it contacts an NTP (Network Time Protocol) server and corrects the time - hence the brief window of wrong time before correction. Replacing the CMOS battery fixes the root cause. Option B (configure NTP) treats the symptom, not the cause. Option C (time zone) would produce a consistent offset, not a brief incorrect period. Option D (set BIOS time manually) is a workaround that would need repeating after every shutdown.

Topics

#CMOS battery#system clock#BIOS#RTC

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