Why do my clocks lose time? Bad electricity?

[olefin]

*Originally posted by a1997xf11 *
** My computer however gains about 30 seconds a day on its system time. **

My new Dell computer gained time, I tried several updates and other things…

Then I found this simple little program that background synchronization keeps your PC in sync with U.S. government-maintained atomic clocks at intervals you specify and automatically resets the computer clock. (XP does the same thing but it never worked in mine)

Since I installed Rockettime (free version) my computer is acturate to the second… all the time!

[Q.E.D]

*Originally posted by swansont *
**As I understand it, they “settle” - have a “star quake” - and the frequency changes in an unpredictable way, which is a bad thing for clocks. **

Yes, those are the glitches talked about on the page I linked to. The change in frequency is only about 1 part in 10[sup]11[/sup], typically, and also these glitches occur only rarely, it seems. Apparently they’ve never been observed in high-rate pulsars, either.

[swansont]

*Originally posted by Q.E.D. *
**Yes, those are the glitches talked about on the page I linked to. The change in frequency is only about 1 part in 10[sup]11[/sup], typically, and also these glitches occur only rarely, it seems. Apparently they’ve never been observed in high-rate pulsars, either. **

And 10[sup]-11[/sup] is a big shift for a good clock.

[Q.E.D]

Beats my digital watches by a wide margin. Besides if you want to avoid the glitches, use young, high-rate pulsars. There’s no shortage of them.

[Q.E.D]

And that’s a difference of only .022 seconds over the lifetime of the average human.