[ntp:questions] Are these Windows XP clients beyond hope?

Danny Mayer mayer at ntp.isc.org
Mon Sep 19 04:09:20 UTC 2005


Neil Trotter wrote:
> 
> 4. List "nearest" servers first.
> 
> (To be truthful, I may have made #4 up, as it just seems to make sense -
> but I *think* I remember reading this).
> 

It makes no difference. That's not how the selection algorithms work. It 
will look at all of them initially and then drop servers that don't make 
the cut.

> I administer 2 small networks, both consisting of a mix of Fedora Linux
> servers and Windows 2K/XP workstations, all x86 hardware.
> 
> The Linux servers poll internet time sources only.  Windows clients run
> Heiko's build 1354, and poll local linux servers and the internet.
> Windows clocks are not intended to be polled on our networks (that's
> just my rule).
> 
> All machines are keeping good time except 2 of the windows XP clients at
> one of the sites, and these are drifting wildly.  Since all the config
> files are similar, and 2 other XP clients on the same network (with
> identical config files) are staying sync'd, is this just a case of
> hopelessly bad hardware clocks, or is there something else I can try?
> 

I suspect that there's something wrong with those XP clients. I develop 
on XP and have seen no such issues. It's not the code, but if any 
multimedia applications are being run you may be losing interrupts and 
that causes problems with the clock.

Danny



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