[time-nuts] NTP and Windows 7

David J Taylor david-taylor at blueyonder.co.uk
Fri Mar 28 00:27:59 EDT 2014


Hi David

My question was not that it runs on XP, I was asking if you are running some
other software on your Win7 machine that might occasionally hit up the
system resources to the point where the system stutters.

Backup programs can do this.  Applications that look for newer versions when
they load can cause a network hit. Lots of stuff. Java and Flash are
notorious for causing memory and timing problems.

Cheers!
Dave
==============================

My apologies, Dave.  When I looked at the Web site I saw that the "works on 
all Windows" was clearly stated.

You ask a good question, but in my experience with NTP load from other 
software has not been a major issue (NTP runs at realtime priority), except 
in the higher CPU temperature that extra load can cause, and therefore 
change the frequency of the low-cost CPU crystal on the motherboard, and 
hence NTP will run at a higher offset while it is correcting for the new 
frequency.  This effect clearly shows on one of my PCs which has a regular 
disk-defragmentation job - 100% CPU and also higher disk load and 
temperature - causing the spikes on the graphs:

  http://www.satsignal.eu/mrtg/bacchus_ntp_2.html

The is a very old PC running Windows 2000 on a Pentium III 550 MHz - 
remember those?  Even then, the spikes are at the millisecond level, not the 
fraction of a second level John was reporting.

Cheers,
David
-- 
SatSignal Software - Quality software written to your requirements
Web: http://www.satsignal.eu
Email: david-taylor at blueyonder.co.uk 



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