Time delayed by 5 minutes on 2008 DC Server impacting all domain comoputers.

Its likely syncing with another server using NTP (network time protocol).

Is it a virtual machine or physical?

Open command prompt (run as administrator).

run the following command:

w32tm /query /status

it should say "Synced by (S)NTP)" meaning its using the time sync
then further down it will say.

"Reference ID: ......... "(source IP: x.x.x.x)"

the source IP is where it is syncing from.

Ned

To nedramsay

It's a virtual machine running on VMWare.

Ok did you run the command I said above? That will tell us where it is syncing with.

Within VMWare Vsphere there is an option to synchronize the time with the VMware host rather than using windows timing.

In previous versions of vmware (up to 5) you right click on the VMware tools icon in the system tray. Go to properties. Then options. There is a tick box that says "time synchronisation between the esx host and the virtual server" if it is ticked it will sync with the host machine.

With ESXi 5.1 you can enable time synchronization with the host in the VM's settings (Edit Settings –> Options –> VMware Tools)

To nedramsay:

After running the following command as Admin in DC 2008:
w32tm /query /status

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

C:\Users\administrator.HASA>w32tm /query /status
Leap Indicator: 0(no warning)
Stratum: 1 (primary reference - syncd by radio clock)
Precision: -6 (15.625ms per tick)
Root Delay: 0.0000000s
Root Dispersion: 10.0000000s
ReferenceId: 0x4C4F434C (source name:  "LOCL")
Last Successful Sync Time: 6/20/2013 10:32:08 AM
Source: Free-running System Clock
Poll Interval: 6 (64s)

Ok local means its running off its own clock not NTP so I would guess that the VMware host it is running on has the wrong time. Do you have access to the hosts?

Yes. I have access to the hosts. It is running on vSphere Client Version 5.1.0

Please verify what you wrote here:

"You can either untick this and manually set the time on the windows server, or better would be to make your hosts synchronize with a public time server. So make sure this is ticked."

Ok, if the box is ticked it means that it will synchronize from the host time down to the VM.

If its unticked then whatever time you set in windows will stay.

The recommendation is to synchronize your entire network via NTP. An easy way of doing this is making sure the box is ticked then following the rest of the steps so your hosts update from the public pool.

This will have the following effect:
Public NTP pool will filter down to ESX host machine which will pass down to Windows VM
Otherwise you will be managing every windows machine on your hosts individually.

Does that make sense? Sorry, im doing like a million things at once today haha!

Thank you Guru nedramsay.

Got it.

nedramsay

Sorry to bug you but all domain computers are not syncing to the DC which now has the correct time.

The computers should automatically be syncing to the DC if they are on the domain. They may need a reboot to pick up the time as its now changed. If you want to add "belt and braces" to your setup you can do the following on your DHCP server.

Open the DHCP management snap in.
Select your DHCP server from the list.
Expand the scope
Right click Scope Options
Configure Options
look for option 004 Time Server and tick it.
add the IP of your domain controller into the options.

Clients may need a restart to get the correct time.

We dont use DHCP. All domain computers have static IPs.

I ran this tool on my domain computer and time is not syncing with DC.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc758905(WS.10).aspx

try this on a client pc (run as admin).

w32tm /config /manualpeerlist: X.X.X.X /syncfromflags:manual /update

but put your DC ip address instead of the Xs

If you want to do it by group policy then there is a good guide here: http://www.altaro.com/hyper-v/configuring-time-synchronization-for-all-computers-in-windows-domain/

Thx for all your help "Guru nedramsay".