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Date:      Thu, 25 Dec 1997 00:33:11 +0100 (MEZ)
From:      Robert Eckardt <roberte@MEP.Ruhr-Uni-Bochum.de>
To:        jbryant@unix.tfs.net
Cc:        freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: procedure to adjust clock drift?
Message-ID:  <199712242333.AAA17532@ghost.mep.ruhr-uni-bochum.de>
In-Reply-To: <199712241755.LAA09424@unix.tfs.net> from Jim Bryant at "Dec 24, 97 11:55:49 am"

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It was Jim Bryant who wrote:
> if you are adventurous, you can tweak the loading capacitor for the
> clock crystal..  to zero the clock to the design frequency.  best way
> to do this is to get a frequency counter and monitor the output of the
> oscillator while tweaking the capacitor [the variable near the
> crystal].  if you don't have a counter, the next best way to do this
> is to try trial and error by ear using some known reference such as
> WWV.  to get a properly adjusted oscillator, you can spend upwards of
> a month using the trial and error method, as only cumulative error
> will be noticable.  use a counter if you can find one!B

I think most motherboards nowadays use integrated oscillators without
any tuneable parts -- at least I found none on my motherboards.
My old 486-board stayed about 4 s/d behind when powered off and went
8 s/d ahead when in use.
The ASUS I have now for my Pentium goes about 1 s/week behind.
(I tuned my watch to 10 s/a, but now it's sensitive to the battery voltage.)

> this can be alleviated by running xntpd or timed, which by getting the
> time from a stratum 1 timeserver at regular intervals can skew the
> clock via software to correct for the frequency error of the
> oscillator.

I agree, if you have a (permanent) connection to the internet this
is the way I would go, but not all systems have one.


Robert

-- 
Robert Eckardt                \\ FreeBSD -- solutions for a large universe.(tm)
RobertE@MEP.Ruhr-Uni-Bochum.de \\       What do you want to boot tomorrow ?(tm)
http://WWW.MEP.Ruhr-Uni-Bochum.de/~roberte
For PGP-key finger roberte@gluon.MEP.Ruhr-Uni-Bochum.de



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