# What's up with time syncing on Win 8.1 !?



## RejZoR (Mar 30, 2014)

What the hell is going on with time synchronization in Windows 8.1 ? All time servers are timing out, erroring etc. I have 2 computers and on both, time is totally out of sync. On laptop it's 20 seconds off compared to time.is. On PC it's over 8 seconds. It was never higher than 5 sec. WTF!?

I am using TomatoRAF on  my router which might be the cause, but then again i've been using it with such config for ages. I never recall such issues with Win7. That's why i'm wondering.


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## animal007uk (Mar 30, 2014)

Seems to be working as it should here, Just did a manual update and my clock was already right not even 1 second in it.

Using the router my isp sent me with no custom firmware on it.


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## newtekie1 (Mar 30, 2014)

I just tested on all my 8.1 machines and they all synced manually fine to time.windows.com, a few took two tries though before they were successful.


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## erocker (Mar 30, 2014)

Time/date in the bios set correctly?


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## RejZoR (Mar 31, 2014)

Time in BIOS is set correctly. I just find it VERY odd that i see same problem on two different devices.


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## newtekie1 (Mar 31, 2014)

It is kind of confusing, that is saying that the last attempt to synchronize was on 31.3.2014 at 20.23.  Yeah, the wording is messed up because it actually wasn't synchronized, the synchronization was unsuccessful.

I think certain times the servers just get overloaded.  Like my work computer I just had to try about 10 times before it would successfully sync.

In my experience the syncing works better if you don't use time.windows.com but change it to one of the last two time servers instead.


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## eidairaman1 (Mar 31, 2014)

Honestly time syncing is a pointless feature that puts constant net and cpu load on a machine. Just turn it off and manually adjust your time.


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## newtekie1 (Apr 1, 2014)

eidairaman1 said:


> Honestly time syncing is a pointless feature that puts constant net and cpu load on a machine. Just turn it off and manually adjust your time.



Puts a constant net and cpu load on a machine?  It auto syncs once a week and it takes about 10 seconds when it is successful...  You really can't live with that 10 seconds of internet use and CPU use a week?!


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## Solaris17 (Apr 1, 2014)

eidairaman1 said:


> Honestly time syncing is a pointless feature that puts constant net and cpu load on a machine. Just turn it off and manually adjust your time.



watch out dont wanna hit your data cap.


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## eidairaman1 (Apr 1, 2014)

newtekie1 said:


> Puts a constant net and cpu load on a machine?  It auto syncs once a week and it takes about 10 seconds when it is successful...  You really can't live with that 10 seconds of internet use and CPU use a week?!



Go all out or not at all i say. I did it during windows xp days too lol


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## The Von Matrices (Apr 1, 2014)

This happens to me frequently when updates are applied; for what reason I do not know.  You can fix it by restarting the time service manually.  Start the task manager, go to the services tab, and find the "W32Time" service.  Right click the service and choose to stop it.  Then, go and try to synchronize the time.  The service will auto restart and the clock will synchronize successfully.


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## RejZoR (Apr 1, 2014)

Tried that already and it still fails every bloody single time. I've also tried bypassing router by connecting PC directly to modem. Failed to sync as well. I just don't fuckin get it what the hell is going on. No matter what server i try, it ALWAYS fails. On two different computers. Have to check my sisters laptop with Windows 7 as well...


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## RejZoR (Apr 1, 2014)

Ok, this is total bullshit. I can't sync a god damn time no matter when i try and how many times i try. WTF Microsoft!?!!??!

After using NetTime:
http://www.timesynctool.com

I got my system clock to atomic exact time. Why some simple open source tool can do what a professional operating system can't. Dafaq...

EDIT:
Or by using one of these time servers:
0.nettime.pool.ntp.org
1.nettime.pool.ntp.org
2.nettime.pool.ntp.org
3.nettime.pool.ntp.org


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## jsfitz54 (Apr 1, 2014)

Try setting time server for all devices, router, Windows, etc. to:  tock.usno.navy.mil or tick.usno.navy.mil


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## 95Viper (Apr 2, 2014)

Make sure that you don't have "UDP on port 123" blocked in your router's firewall, the systems firewalls, or any software firewalls.

Since you stated it seems to be on all systems... I would look to the routers settings.


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## RejZoR (Apr 2, 2014)

It's not router. I've unplugged PC from it and connected it directly to VDSL2 modem. It still refused to sync time. but with above servers, it works fine even through the router. And so did on my laptop. ANd i haven't changed any other settings, i just replaced default servers with above and everything works. So, only conclusion that i can make is that all default windows time servers are fucked up and dead.


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## BiggieShady (Apr 2, 2014)

There were lots of DDoS attacks on the udp port 123 (Network Time Protocol) recently ... yes, DDoS targeted time servers specifically ... http://blog.cloudflare.com/technical-details-behind-a-400gbps-ntp-amplification-ddos-attack


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## RCoon (Apr 2, 2014)

BiggieShady said:


> There were lots of DDoS attacks on the udp port 123 (Network Time Protocol) recently ... yes, DDoS targeted time servers specifically ... http://blog.cloudflare.com/technical-details-behind-a-400gbps-ntp-amplification-ddos-attack


 
What kind of pointless script kiddies DDoS a time server? OH NOES. THE WORLDS COMPUTERS ARE ALL 20 SECONDS OUT OF SYNC. Except for you know, every non MS user, and all those manual users, not to mention all the people that don't even care.
My brother in law's dad was running a machine 1 year and 3 months out of sync for almost 4 years. The guy simply did not care. Even when SSL certificates for websites wouldn't validate xD


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## BiggieShady (Apr 2, 2014)

RCoon said:


> What kind of pointless script kiddies DDoS a time server?





> To generate approximately 400Gbps of traffic, the attacker used 4,529 NTP servers running on 1,298 different networks.



This is a group in control of a massive number of malware infested PC-s. Why are they attacking time servers? I'm guessing they need it for messing with other time-stamp sensitive data - for example financial transactions ...


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## arskatb (Apr 2, 2014)

oh pls. how its gonna change ur life when ur pc time is on 0 tolerance sync?


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