System time synchronization | HW problem?

[Alexander Holst]

Hi everybody,

I have YDL 3.0.1 installed on a 266MHz Wallstreet and encounter some
strange problems:

Everything works fine - exept the system time is running about twice as
fast as it should. I genreal this means that in one hour, the system
time advances roughly two hours (not bad if you want to leave work
earlier than others ;).

Now, I got the Wallstreet from a friend, as both serial ports are
defective (modem does not respond & no printer connected to the printer 
port appears appears in the chooser). Could that somehow be related to
the clock problem?

What is the reference the Linux kernel uses to obtain its internal
system time clock cycles. To avoid misunderstandings, the HW clock works
perfectly well - so under OS9 I do not encounter this problem. Funny
enough, under OSX 10.3.x (via XPostFacto) the symptom is exactly the
opposite: the kernel detects a CPU with 677 MHz (sometimes even up to
1,7GHz!) which leads to the fact that the OSX System time runs too slow,
and all animations such as the appearance of the dock, are horrendously
slow.

I do have a beige G3 233 MHz Desktop with the exact same setup and it
does not show any of this behaviour. I also have confirmation that the
symptoms are not present on a Wallstreet, which has no HW problems,
running YDL 3.0 as well - so I assume some HW problem. I could live
without serial ports, but the time issue isn't very practical.

In order to narrow down on the defective component: which HW part does
the Linux kernel sync its time to at boot time? And on which board is it
located in Wallstreet models - maybe the I/O-board in the rear, where
the serial port connector is? I do have the possibility to order
replacement parts from a company here which only repairs Apple
portables, but they wouldn't know which of the parts to replace
according to my descriptions - they recommended the modem, but then the
printers should work, shouldn't they?

Here a snippet from dmesg:

GMT Delta read from XPRAM: 120 minutes, DST: on
via_calibrate_decr: ticks per jiffy = 63509 (381058 ticks)
Warning: real time clock seems stuck!
Console: colour dummy device 80x25
Calibrating delay loop... 202.75 BogoMIPS

This is the corresponding part of dmesg from my beige G3:

GMT Delta read from XPRAM: 120 minutes, DST: on
via_calibrate_decr: ticks per jiffy = 167079 (1002477 ticks)
Console: colour dummy device 80x25
Calibrating delay loop... 466.94 BogoMIPS

Shouldn't the BogoMIPS always be roughly twice the CPU speed? If so, my
Wallstreet should read something like 266x2=532 and not 202.75, as it
does.

Any help apreciated !!! I would love to use the PowerBook to travel and
get my emails and do some writing.

Regards & and a Happy NewYear,
Alex




-- 
Alexander Holst
Hergulesse Design
ph: +49 [0]711 887 5195
fx: +49 [0]711 887 5196
<alex.holst [at] hergulesse [dot] de>