From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Mar 12 19:27:04 2014 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 8DB56878 for ; Wed, 12 Mar 2014 19:27:04 +0000 (UTC) Received: from eu1sys200aog110.obsmtp.com (eu1sys200aog110.obsmtp.com [207.126.144.129]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id CB72774E for ; Wed, 12 Mar 2014 19:27:03 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-we0-f180.google.com ([74.125.82.180]) (using TLSv1) by eu1sys200aob110.postini.com ([207.126.147.11]) with SMTP ID DSNKUyC07DK+8UDUe4US4OoFwsQSj4jE3K76@postini.com; Wed, 12 Mar 2014 19:27:03 UTC Received: by mail-we0-f180.google.com with SMTP id p61so11785025wes.11 for ; Wed, 12 Mar 2014 12:26:36 -0700 (PDT) X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20130820; h=x-gm-message-state:sender:date:from:message-id:to:subject:cc :reply-to:in-reply-to; bh=1CAlfeO6bjyKASEl70kz00mmfLeVGjHrO/6d7YvrZnY=; b=NACs2uas05N93PzV59S+tZmP2BFrfUe1RVJohjNU1dD+w0PYWcw1b7ABb/4/1+qp+a o1G51DIMj1HTr4QMYzsS7E9SGbX895efL1UX7OPer1VMhjo9F7BGM5SjACtiS19S0Bw4 GHVQ2GM8uC3zpsn+bMLNFFGHeINMAChGqbEHY++DMhXmk0cWQhlqB9VNSVo2RVqISFnx dRz9/Pei7WuL+9IJw2Aim4jwlPMO4yvwgIb0Sx7qs+7pSpR+dmkwasjOEwpOuQb8OKY2 GdPrfmwCUUJt5xJXu+y0TeFJtJDKvxA6TAegZS36erhi54fKhZOcXrCCBJ1t9F+qTETa S7Ig== X-Gm-Message-State: ALoCoQmB+J+bkVeTLo2uQNxlHp+wxEDudQ9/Wv9S+kb4GI+pfifTNdr0UfteO6Wx8C5Eio0+n5FTzFP5WUFFXQlOAUDADnl4/EBbU8Vf2/plgFnYI67V34+Qm2SMGdkKYZZ+2RutJcdLg0o4GH7dQLY+Q0Tt4CDh5dhcF/ZURqLGDmBbpj6ezLMmSOR0N/6Gvu4s5EJl/O9O X-Received: by 10.194.85.168 with SMTP id i8mr106902wjz.81.1394652396156; Wed, 12 Mar 2014 12:26:36 -0700 (PDT) X-Received: by 10.194.85.168 with SMTP id i8mr106895wjz.81.1394652396061; Wed, 12 Mar 2014 12:26:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mech-cluster241.men.bris.ac.uk (mech-cluster241.men.bris.ac.uk. [137.222.187.241]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPSA id t6sm18603830wix.4.2014.03.12.12.26.34 for (version=TLSv1.2 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 bits=128/128); Wed, 12 Mar 2014 12:26:35 -0700 (PDT) Sender: Anton Shterenlikht Received: from mech-cluster241.men.bris.ac.uk (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mech-cluster241.men.bris.ac.uk (8.14.7/8.14.6) with ESMTP id s2CJQXmS078113 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 bits=256 verify=NO); Wed, 12 Mar 2014 19:26:33 GMT (envelope-from mexas@mech-cluster241.men.bris.ac.uk) Received: (from mexas@localhost) by mech-cluster241.men.bris.ac.uk (8.14.7/8.14.6/Submit) id s2CJQXbQ078112; Wed, 12 Mar 2014 19:26:33 GMT (envelope-from mexas) Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 12:26:35 -0700 (PDT) From: Anton Shterenlikht Message-Id: <201403121926.s2CJQXbQ078112@mech-cluster241.men.bris.ac.uk> To: cswiger@mac.com, mexas@bris.ac.uk Subject: Re: ntp frequent time resets - battery dead? In-Reply-To: <339ED6B9-F04D-4812-B228-729696C64E47@mac.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.17 Precedence: list Reply-To: mexas@bris.ac.uk List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 19:27:04 -0000 >From cswiger@mac.com Tue Mar 4 20:51:34 2014 > >Hi-- > >On Mar 4, 2014, at 1:07 AM, Anton Shterenlikht wrote: >> I see in /var/log/messages: >> >> Mar 4 00:16:40 mech-anton240 ntpd[764]: time reset +0.291030 s >> Mar 4 00:38:02 mech-anton240 ntpd[764]: time reset +0.344745 s >> Mar 4 00:57:37 mech-anton240 ntpd[764]: time reset +0.338739 s >> Mar 4 01:19:45 mech-anton240 ntpd[764]: time reset +0.355020 s >> Mar 4 01:41:34 mech-anton240 ntpd[764]: time reset +0.365177 s >> Mar 4 01:58:41 mech-anton240 ntpd[764]: time reset +0.306982 s >> >> and so on. >> >> The correction seems large to me. > >Yes, it looks to be about ~1 second per hour. That's 1:1000 ratio, >which is getting close to the typical kernel limit on adjtime(). > >Tweaking the step threshold might help. Or look into tickadj / ntptime. Sorry, I don't understand this. Please elaborate. > >> Does this indicate that the battery is dead? > >A dead battery usually means that the system won't keep the ToY clock updated >if the system is off and unplugged. A PC would indicate BIOS checksum errors >and reset the ToY clock back to epoch. I think Suns of that era were still >using OpenFirmware on EEPROMS which didn't need power to keep their settings. > >> This is on a Sun Blade 1500 silver desktop, about 10 years old. > >Having the clock run slow (ie, needing the time to be moved forwards) can >result from interrupt handling issues; if something like a USB controller, or >storage controller, etc is wonky and generating thousands of interrupts per >second, the ISR being busy might cause clock interrupts to be lost because >the kernel is otherwise busy. > >That ought to be more common on commodity Intel hardware than on SPARCs; as the >SPARC v8 and later had several levels of nested interrupt contexts available, IIRC. > >Regards, >-- >-Chuck I had suspected disk problems on this box, so I replaced both disks, and installed 9.1 release. The problem actually got worse: Mar 12 15:19:39 mech-aslap33 kernel: Event timer "tick" frequency 1503000000 Hz quality 1000 Mar 12 15:34:01 mech-anton240 kernel: Event timer "tick" frequency 1503000000 Hz quality 1000 Mar 12 15:34:13 mech-anton240 ntpd[706]: time reset -1.086763 s Mar 12 15:50:45 mech-anton240 ntpd[706]: time reset +0.780002 s Mar 12 16:08:45 mech-anton240 ntpd[706]: time reset +0.816043 s Mar 12 16:26:20 mech-anton240 ntpd[706]: time reset +0.788435 s Mar 12 16:43:03 mech-anton240 ntpd[706]: time reset +0.774967 s Mar 12 17:00:24 mech-anton240 ntpd[706]: time reset +0.792823 s Mar 12 17:17:53 mech-anton240 ntpd[706]: time reset +0.786167 s Mar 12 17:34:22 mech-anton240 ntpd[706]: time reset +0.769774 s Mar 12 17:51:34 mech-anton240 ntpd[706]: time reset +0.787633 s Mar 12 18:08:29 mech-anton240 ntpd[706]: time reset +0.766031 s Mar 12 18:25:40 mech-anton240 ntpd[706]: time reset +0.786657 s Mar 12 18:42:47 mech-anton240 ntpd[706]: time reset +0.762096 s Mar 12 19:00:56 mech-anton240 ntpd[706]: time reset +0.813446 s Note that after every reboot, there is a large negative correction, then about 2 sec per hour. So this indeed looks like some hardware issue, rather that an OS problem. Thanks Anton > >