Calling all computer wiz's- Why would my computer date/time change

[Wcross]

I went into the bios and corrected it but this morning it said the year was 2099. I rebooted it and it then said the date was 9999. All I did was sign off as normal last night. My motherboard is under one year old and I haven't downloaded any new programs or opened any e-mail links or that type of thing.
Any ideas why it did that?

[Xipe Totec]

1. time to replace the battery n/t

[Kutjara]

2. Usually, when the system clock goes whacko...

...it means that the little battery that powers the computer's CMOS (the chip that keeps settings like time and date) has run out. It's basically a small watch-battery that sits on your computer's motherboard. Your comp is under a year old, though, so I'm a little surprised that battery has run out already. Also, when the battery goes, the date usually resets back to someting like 01.01.84, not some date in the future.

What operating system are you using? If it's XP, Vista or MacOS, you can set the time/date to automatically adjust by connecting to official timeservers on the internet.

[Wcross]

4. I am running Vista.

I am stumped, as you said usually it won't reset to the future. Maybe I should have logged on to the net to see if it turned into a magic computer that only connected to the future? That would have been sweet! Until I got curious enough to google my obituary...................

[Kutjara]

6. Don't do that!

What if you discovered there was no Net in the future because we'd wiped ourselves out in the intervening time. That kind of thing could put a damper on your whole day. Better not to know.

If you were on a Mac, I'd recommend resetting your Parameter RAM, but an equivalent doesn't exist on Windows PCs.

If it's not the CMOS battery and the comp works ok except for the time/date thing, I suppose you could just force the comp to set its time from the Net by clicking the relevant checkbox in the date/time control panel. The machine would still start up with the wrong values, but would correct itself within a few minutes.

[Wcross]

7. I like surprises anyways.....

It only did it once so far. I will see if it repeats, that will be the sure sign of a problem. It might force me to upgrade, huh? (I love it when I am "forced" to get better stuff!)

[skygazer]

3. Completely off-topic

My SO came over to ask me something and caught sight of the pic in your sig - he's now cracking up quite boisterously. :)

[Wcross]

5. When I saw it I had to use it.

The apocalypse kitty. Or some REALLY potent catnip...