Time changes on MacBook Pro

[acg]

Lately I have noticed that when I turn on my computer (intel core 2 duo, running 10.4. the time (sometimes, not always) is exactly 3 hrs ahead. When I open the relevant preference panel, it sometimes (though I haven't noticed what triggers it) changes back to the right time. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance;)

[Gregg]

My first (well, ok; only) thought is the PRAM battery. Does that apply?

I've never owned my own "_book".

[acg]

I know this was the answer in the era before X; don't know if it applies to this case. Plus, here it is a bit different because the time offset is always the same; +3 hrs. Anyway, how can I find out what the deal is with the PRAM battery. Also, I am using this machine as a dual system (PC at work, Mac at home) and I don't get the same problem on the PC (WinXP) side.

[gunug]

I'm thinking "crazy" thoughts like maybe something is happening with time zones here!  Are you doing something with "boot camp", "Parallel's" or Virtual PC?  I've seen something similar to this when I've had a dual-boot PC system with Windows XP and Linux on a PC laptop and conflicting timezones in the different operating systems.  I can't get into the Forums section of the Apple Support site because of the firewall we're trying to get adjusted here where I work!

Later: Do you have it setup to set date and time automatically from one of those websites?

[acg]

I am indeed using boot camp to run both systems on the computer. However, I have been doing this for several months now and it only started happening a few days ago.

[tacit]

This problem can occur if you use Boot Camp and the time zone in Windows is different than the time zone in Mac OS. I'd suggest looking at the Windows time zone setting as the first course of action.