Yea! Problem solved!

Problem not yet solved. A power outage must never cause that date time clock to change. It implies a battery failure or some other problem exists. A problem easily identified quickly if you don't try to fix it by just swapping parts. Power outage will not change the date on a functional machine.

thanks tw, I know this PC is obsolete (5 yrs old), but will have to do until I get a new one next year, unless you have any other suggestions do-able by a computer idiot like me.

It is surely a battery failure which may or may not be user-solvable. Some other settings may have also changed but if the system seems to run, you can limp along in that state until you have the money to send it to me to fix.

It's a trade off though. isn't it? She can spend a lot of time and aggravation and money to fix a possible battery problem, or she can spend 30 seconds changing the date back the next time the power goes out. I know what I would choose.

I think that is the way to go glatt, I don't want to spend anytime or money to fix a 5 yr old, $500 dell PC

Thanks btw UT, but fixing this thing would be like putting lipstick on a pig

I had my computer worked on once, and after I got it back there was a certain type of game I couldn't save. The save option came up, but it wouldn't do anything. (I was downloading free rpg type games like Final Fallacy.) It wasn't until I had a problem with another type of game that said something cryptic that made me look at my clock and I saw the year was set to 8002. I don't know how or why, but fixing it fixed the problem. It really is time for a new computer, though.

LOL @ 8002. Something that futuristic should have worked really well!

You'd think! :)

The time would have taken 30 seconds. Far more complex with the simple knowledge and tool to eliminate the problem.

However we do not fix things to save time and money. We fix things to learn. A changing date time is a precursor to other and future problems - such as a disk drive that cannot be accessed. Some simply solve these problems by purchasing a new machine. A solution to avoid labor of learning.

Which Dell is it? Perhaps we can fix from afar.

yeah well, thats me. lazy as hell.

More interesting, the clock has no way to store 8002. Data time clocks measure by counting seconds from a fixed date - typically a day in 1981. No date time clock has the ability to count seconds up to 8002.

BTW, that knowledge also says why the millennium fears were total nonsense in 2000. Why would a count that changes from 596937607 to 596937608 cause a computer crash? Because too many _new_ without first learning the facts. Fear due to technical ignorance was a primary reason for panic and predictions.

Curious because a date time clock cannot store the number of seconds for the year 8002. Implies a problem elsewhere - ie somebody wrote software with a defect - that used signed rather than unsigned integers. IOW the defect date also identified another problem with that computer.

I'll look into it. I have no idea what model it is