[Sussex] NTP Weirdness

[Richie Jarvis]

> Hi all.
>
> I've come across a little problem I've not seen before and was wondering
> if any of you have encountered the same.
>
> The system is a duel Pentium 4 2.6GHz running Debian (Etch) 4.0.  I've
> installed ntp to keep the clock up to date but it drifts badly, racing
> the clock ahead of real time by tens of minutes per day.
>
> Close to the system (in the DMZ has it happens) is the site's NTP
> server.  It syncs via the ISP's time server and from some in the debian
> pool from ntp.org.  It working just fine.  I know this because all the
> other servers on that site sync to it, including a M$ Small Business
> Server, and they are not having a problem.
>
> On the same subnet, and therefore with the same round trip network costs
> for the NTP packets is a 4 x Xeon 2.8GHz Debain system and a 2 x Xeon
> 2.8GHz system.  Both of which are configured to use NTP is the same way
> and both of which keep good time - just like my systems at home do.
>
> Any clues as it what's going on?
>
> Steve

Note: I've been trying to reply to this all day - lets see if this one
gets through!

I've seen this problem related to Athlon systems - in particular, my
MythTV box, which uses a NForce2 chipset - the solution in that case was
to disable an option in the BIOS (FSB Spread Spectrum)

It may be that your system experiences a similar type of issue?

Cheers,

Richie