I would think you would still want to load the latest drivers from Dell -- maybe just not your personal software at first. Once that is working, you could load your apps one at a time and test to see if indeed one of your apps is causing the problem....

 

I would start with the normal stuff like office first and then work on any esoteric apps. You could google search your apps and see if there are others encountering clock issues as another means of researching...

 

Let is know if it is some sort of software issue...

Thanks for the reply.  Yeah, I would have checked the battery too, but it's unlikely (not impossible, I suppose) that I'd have a bad battery or connection on 3 motherboards.  Last guy I spoke with at Dell said it could be something on my hard drive - a software problem.  I suppose it could be, but that doesn't sound likely to me.  But just to be sure there's not something I installed on the hard drive that's somehow causing the BIOS to reset the clock, I'll run the new system they've sent EXACTLY as it comes - just turn it on out of the box & use it as-is for a week or so & see if the clock stays set.  If it does, then I'll swap hard drives & see if the problem re-occurs.  That should pretty much tell me if it's being caused by the hard drive...

 

Any other ideas would be appreciated.

 

Thanks,

 

Barry

this is not normal behaviour IMHO. I have the 420 with vista ultimate and do not have / never had this issue. I would have suggested checking that the battery on tthe motherboard is installed/seated properly...

THANKS again!  Great suggestions!  I'll definitely set up the new machine & load drivers, etc..  The problem with all this is that it takes time - which I don't have much of... 

 

To make it worse, it's an intermittent problem.  It might work flawlessly for days & then suddenly the problem will re-occur.  But I guess I just have to go through it to know if it's a Dell problem, Vista or ???  It's frustrating - my old PC (running XP Pro) never gave me any issues...  And I'm not sure how much time Dell will give me to play around with both machines.  I know they want the old one returned fairly quickly.

 

Barry

On other computers when I had trouble like this it was ultimately because I was turning the power off completely at the power strip.  Despite having a fresh battery, the cmos time/date can reset if the motherboard loses external power repeatedly (I presume the battery didn't kick in fast enough every time).  My solution was to plug the computer into the "always on" outlet in my power strip.  This removed my problem.  (But then you have to remember to physically unplug the PC when you open it to work on instead of relying on the power strip switch.)

Thanks, but the power is always on.  But, it shouldn't lose it's settings even if it wasn't...

mind you this is not my 420, but I noticed on an xp install that there is a windows time service that starts automatically. Does this service exist on your machine and is it started? I will look at my 420 / vista system a bit later...

Thanks to all for your replies & suggestions.  After trying several fixes, I finally received another replacement computer from Dell.  I put the system disk from the new PC in my old one & guess what - same clock problem.  So this convinced me that it's not a software problem or anything on my hard drive that's causing the problem.  So I swapped drives & my old hard drive is working just fine in the new system.  Clock is stable.  So it appears, after all, that I just had the misfortune of receiving 3 defective motherboards in a row... 

 

Not sure what this says about Dell (or Intel's) quality control - a little disconcerting, to say the least. 

 

I'll be testing this new PC over the next few days to be sure it's solid before sending the old one back - I'll keep you all posted - hopefully I now have a solid/stable machine...

 

Thanks again for all your replies!

 

Barry

OK, I lied.  Problem still exists.  Now it's clear that this is a software problem since it's existed now across 2 machines, 2 HDDs & 3 motherboards. 

 

Not sure, but it "seems" to have started again (on new machine with new/fresh HDD) after I installed Adobe CS3 (full suite).  Anyone aware of anything there that could cause a conflict/problem like this?  Again, the clock needs to be reset EVERY time I boot or restart the computer.  Gives me an error that "clock not set".  Going into setup is of no use - won't let me save if I just reset the clock, so I just hit "F1" & reset it in Windows.  Probably not a catastrophic issue, but very annoying!

 

Any ideas/suggestions would be much appreciated.

 

Thanks,

 

Barry