f17 no internet after power failure, power restored

[Tim]

Tim:
>>If you often leave your computer switched off for many hours and your
>>clock is fine, then the battery is probably okay.

jackson byers:
> well, I don't leave it switched off for many hours.
> It is largely idle, no long jobs overnite, but it is on 24x7.

I mention it more as a test, than anything else.  But if yours is always
on, it's hard to do such a test.

> I know nothing about CMOS battery. This is an old system

It's a small battery somewhere on the motherboard, often a coin sized
battery that can be easily replaced.  Sometimes it's more specialised.

Some computers will work fine with a dead battery, other than losing
BIOS settings when powered down.  Others will do strange things even
when they're up and running from the mains power.  It rather depends on
whether the BIOS/CMOS is solely powered from the battery, or if the
battery only takes over when the main supply is off.

Power brownouts and spikes can randomise BIOS settings, and the clock.
So, if your clock has gone wonky, you may want to check other BIOS
settings are sane.  Maybe even for a manufacturer's defaults reset, then
customise everything, to ensure there's nothing lurking to bug you in
another way.

Usually, the batteries last a few years.  Some last a surprisingly long
time.

I doubt you'd have to take it to a specialist, unless its really well
hidden, or unusual.  Do an internet search for CMOS, or BIOS, battery
pictures, and you should find enough examples to help you find it.

> I am running xfce
> the only GUI i can find that might do this is                    
> 
> 
> Administration, Add/remove Software, System-Config-Date
> but clicking on that is unresponsive

Sounds like there may be another problem, then.  So far your "internet
isn't working" descriptions seemed to only mention the web browser not
liking a SSL certificate with a radically different date than your
computer.  The add/remove software may have a similar problem.

I'm still using Fedora 17, and "system-config-date" brings up the older
style control configurator for what I'm talking about.  Which still
should to the job, it shouldn't depend on Gnome, or particular desktops.
The "date and time" configurator in the "system settings" control panels
probably does, since it's a part of the "gnome-control-center" program.

But in what way is it unresponsive?  Perhaps a simple "yum install
system-config-date" command line approach might be more effective.

>> And the second thing that springs to mind regards the clock being way
>> off from what you expect:  Have you correctly set your computer's
>> timezone?  And since you've specified that you set the clock to UTC
>> with the -u flag, was 16:22 the actual UTC time at the time you set
>> the clock?

> right now I don't recall just how I came up with that 16:22:
> I think it was wrong, as per following, from google:
> "Time zone offset: UTC - 7 hours
> PDT is 7 hours behind of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)
> Note that PDT is a daylight saving time/summer time zone. It is
> generally only used during the summer in the places listed below,
> during the winter PST is used instead
> "
> So, i redid the two date commands one for date, one for time as
> corrected for that 7hrs.
> it is looking stable no funny time in panel.

If I were manually setting the time, I'd enter it in local time, taken
from a locally trusted time source.  Let the computer use the timezone
setting to work out the UTC/GMT time difference.  It's the calculator,
not me.  Conversely, if I were going to manually set it to GMT, I'd like
to observe something telling me the time in GMT.

You may find that once your clock is within a reasonable range from the
correct time, that NTP is able to keep it running precisely.  Large
changes often force a need for manual intervention.

-- 
[tim at localhost ~]$ uname -rsvp
Linux 3.8.12-100.fc17.x86_64 #1 SMP Wed May 8 15:36:14 UTC 2013 x86_64

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