Re: timekeeping issues

[Tom Lane <tgl%sss.pgh.pa.us@localhost>]

Valery Ushakov <uwe%stderr.spb.ru@localhost> writes:
> My main g4 mini seems to be struggling with keeping time and has been
> for ages.  After a reboot it keeps time just fine for days (with ntpd
> running).  Then at some point it just falls apart and starts losing
> time steadily (like, a few minutes a day).  This time round I kept an
> eye on it, to see when it's gonna start doing that and it took about
> 20 days.  Nothing interesting in the logs.

FWIW, I've observed no such problems on a G4 laptop (12" AL Powerbook,
I think the 2004 model).  I've been running 10.1 on it for awhile,
but 10.0 before that didn't have such issues either.

> Anything I can do to debug (and hopefully fix) this?

I wonder whether tracking the contents of the driftfile
(/var/db/ntp.drift) would yield any insight.  Also, are
you using any nondefault ntpd options?

> Some 32-bit counter overflows?

2^31 milliseconds is a shade under 25 days, so if the problem
manifests after 20 days that explanation doesn't seem to quite fit.

			regards, tom lane