Dell Inspiron N5110: System time does not advance when unit is off.

David Farber · 2019-03-25T17:28:34+00:00

This Dell Inspiron N5110, which has Windows 7 Home Premium installed, was given to me because upon startup it would BSOD with a REGISTRY_ERROR. That was resolved with a system restore but I noticed another problem which has me puzzled. The system time does not advance when the unit is turned off. I went into the BIOS setup and noticed that within the time configuration, the seconds were not ticking. Once the machine is booted into Windows, the automatic time synchronization will eventually set it to the correct time and it stays that way until it's powered off. The CMOS battery measures above 3 volts in circuit and all the other BIOS settings are saved when the machine is off. I tried temporarily removing the battery to reset the BIOS and the result was that the time reverted back to several years earlier however the seconds were ticking normally. I entered the correct time/date and restarted the computer and all was well. I turned it off for a while and then powered it on again and entered the BIOS setup. The time was stuck again and the seconds were not advancing. It seems to me that no matter what condition the Windows operating system is in, it shouldn't be able to interrupt the time function when the set is powered off. I tried updating the BIOS to a newer version but that just crashed the machine. (Fortunately it didn't brick the machine). I found other users complaining about the frozen clock issue but as yet have found no solution. Here is an example of a similar complaint. Anyone have any ideas what is causing this suspension of time? Thanks for your reply. -- David Farber Los Osos, CA

Mar 25, 2019 21 Replies

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On page 99 of the schematic you can see the CMOS battery output labeled as RTC_AUX_S5. I did a text search for that and it took me to page 27 which shows VBACKUP. There are two partial circuits there. One appears to be for the CMOS battery backup and the other one, 3D3V_AUX_KBC, appears to be the backup power supplied when the unit is turned on. Both of these circuits point to EC GPIO72. Regarding the RTC_AUX_S5 diagram, there's an orange ellipse around the specifications for a resistor. It says 10mW 0R0402-PAD-2-GP. Might that be a fusible link? Also, I see the words "stuff" and "un-stuff" appearing frequently in the schematic. Are those synonyms for install and remove?

Thanks for your reply.

The RTC is only read once on startup of the operating system, which then maintains the increment of it's own internal counter. There is no 'write-back' if current OS time settings are left alone by the user.

The BIOS time itself not incrementing is the fault, I reckon the chipset has got itself into a funny state and needs a reset which you haven't yet done. I'd try finding the G2101 link I mentioned.

Interestingly, the ACER ASPIRE V5 471 has the same labelled jumper, similar circuit (same original manufacturer) - and googling that "G2101", it looks a known reset method for locked BIOS etc. That Acer motherboard visually looks different, but the G2101 triangular pads were located under the DIMM sockets. Maybe Dell is in a similar location.

Dell Inspiron N5110: System time does not advance when unit is off.

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