System time incorrect

**Kestreln8144** · August 14th, 2013

I have a dual-booting system for switching between Windows and Ubuntu. I recently switched to Windows and back, and now my system clock in Ubuntu is incorrect. It is currently 7pm, but it displays 2pm. I don't want to set it manually, and I can't see how to make it update to the correct time.

How can I fix this?

It would also be nice if anyone could explain how to prevent this from happening again. In Windows I can easily tell it to update the time if it's off, but I don't know how to make sure it doesn't happen in Ubuntu anymore.

**lisati** · August 14th, 2013

It's been a while since I've been faced with a similar dilemma, so I might have forgotten something, but here goes anyway:

If you're using a "standard" Ubuntu installation, you can click on the date on the top task bar, then Time and date settings. From there, you'll should be able to find an option to set the date and time automatically from the internet.

**Irihapeti** · August 14th, 2013

This sounds to me like the "BIOS clock set to UTC" issue.

If you look at /etc/default/rcS, do you see the following?

Code:

# assume that the BIOS clock is set to UTC time (recommended)
UTC=yes

That's recommended when you're running Linux only, but causes problems if you're using Windows as well. Windows assumes that the BIOS clock is set to local time.

Edit /etc/default/rcS and replace the "yes" with "no". You'll need to do this as root.

You may need to reboot before resetting the time.

**Kestreln8144** · August 14th, 2013

Originally Posted by Irihapeti

This sounds to me like the "BIOS clock set to UTC" issue.

If you look at /etc/default/rcS, do you see the following?

Code:

# assume that the BIOS clock is set to UTC time (recommended)
UTC=yes

That's recommended when you're running Linux only, but causes problems if you're using Windows as well. Windows assumes that the BIOS clock is set to local time.

Edit /etc/default/rcS and replace the "yes" with "no". You'll need to do this as root.

You may need to reboot before resetting the time.

It was set to UTC=yes, so I changed it to UTC=no as you suggested. But after reboot, it still shows the incorrect time. Is there a way I can force it to recheck? Or might the problem be something else?

**Kestreln8144** · August 14th, 2013

Is it possible my firewall could be the problem? I have it setup in a particular way, and it might be blocking communication with the necessary servers.

EDIT: Yes, that appears to have been the problem. After temporarily disabling it and running the following command, the time corrected itself:

Code: