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My windows laptops are ahead on time when turning on.

David Ball 0 Reputation points
2025-09-25T14:25:13.13+00:00

Hello,

Around 30 Samsung Galaxy Book4's affected, running Windows 24H2 Professional. Enrolled into Intune release 2509. based in the UK.

Effects are:

The laptop's time is running fast, sometimes days in the future.

User reports, when I switch off on Friday evening, then switch on Monday morning the time is hours or days in the future.

Steps taken so far:

Turn location services on, on effected devices.

Use a Win32App deployment to create and run a scheduled task to set the NTP server to time.google.com and sync every day. --- not worked well because the Windows Time Service was turned off meaning syncing would error and complete.

Use a Remediation Script to disable the Win32App deployment and create two scheduled tasks one to set the Windows Time service to "Running" triggered when a user logs in; and the other to sync time when the status of the Windows Time Service is set to "Running".

Both these methods are reporting successful uses but users are complaining with phrases like "Yeah, but that always happens". Means they still get the problem and are not reporting it.

This started in January of this year when we rolled out the devices. We had to remote into some of them and sync via Start Menu > Settings > Time and language > Date and Time > Sync now.

We use a PPKG to enrol our devices, we looked into what this is doing and it is not doing anything related to time settings.

The latest method being tried is an administrative template with the following settings

System > Windows Time Service > Time Providers

Configure Windows NTP Client --- Enabled

CrossSiteSyncFlags (Device) --- 2

EventLogFlags (Device) --- 0

NtpServer (Device) --- time.nist.gov,0x9 0.uk.pool.ntp.org,0x9 time.windows.com,0xa

ResolvePeerBackoffMaxTimes (Device) --- 7

ResolvePeerBackoffMinutes (Device) --- 15

SpecialPollInterval (Device) --- 300

Type (Device) --- NTP

Enable Windows NTP Client --- Enabled

Samsung support have found the following error in the Time-Service Event log ID 259.

NTP Client provider periodic status:

Ntp Client is receiving time data from the following NTP Servers: ; and the chosen reference time server is . System Tick Count 15890173468. IFTSTMP:1.

For more information, see https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=845961.

Windows is searching for an empty server.

Leading me to raise a ticket with MS Intune Support, which has just been closed and I was referred here.

My next steps will be to increase the scope of the Administrative Template and ask for any updates from effected staff.

Does anyone else have any input please?

David

Windows for business | Windows 365 Enterprise
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  1. David Ball 0 Reputation points
    2025-10-13T11:45:01.61+00:00

    Hi Henry,

    Thank you for your reply,

    I am creating a new Intune Profile and the catalogue settings are different than you mention so I am stating them here:

    System > Windows Time Service > Time Providers Enable Windows NTP Client: Enabled Configure Windows NTP Client: Enabled CrossSiteSyncFlags: 2 (Unchanged) EventLogFlags: 0 (Unchanged) NtpServer: BLANK > time.windows.com,0x9 ResolvePeerBackoffMaxTimes: 7 (Unchanged) ResolvePeerBackoffMinutes: 15 (Unchanged) SpecialPollInterval: 1024 (Unchanged) Type: NT5DS > NTP

    After 15 minutes and Syncing Company Portal these are my settings. w32tm /query /configuration NtpClient (Local) DllName: C:\WINDOWS\system32\w32time.dll (Local) Enabled: 1 (Local) InputProvider: 1 (Local) AllowNonstandardModeCombinations: 1 (Local) ResolvePeerBackoffMinutes: 15 (Policy) ResolvePeerBackoffMaxTimes: 7 (Policy) CompatibilityFlags: 2147483648 (Local) EventLogFlags: 0 (Policy) LargeSampleSkew: 3 (Local) SpecialPollInterval: 1024 (Policy) Type: NTP (Policy) NtpServer: time.windows.com,0x9 (Policy)

    Thank you for addressing the time being out of sync when the laptop is turned off. I will raise this with Samsung Support.

    David

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  2. Henry Mai 8,210 Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2025-09-25T17:01:13.04+00:00

    Hello David, I am Henry and I want to share my insight about your issue.

    The evidence you have provided points to two separate problems that must be solved: a software policy failure and an underlying hardware clock issue. Here is an evidence-based action plan to resolve this.

    For a software policy failure, the reason your laptops cannot sync time is that your current Intune policies have failed to configure the Windows Time service correctly.

    • Your own event log: Event ID 259: *NTP Client is receiving time data from the following NTP Servers: ;*This log is direct proof that the NTP server list on your client machines is empty. The Windows Time service has no server to contact. Therefore, the first step must be to deploy a policy that successfully populates this setting.

    We will use the Intune method to configure the three settings required to enable internet time syncing.

    1. Create a Settings Catalog profile in Intune and remove your old policies to prevent conflicts.
    2. Settings to Configure:
      • Category: Time Language And Region
      • NtpServer: time.windows.com,0x9
      • Type: NTP
      • Configure Windows NTP Client: Enabled

    For the hardware clock failure, the time jumping forward while the power is off cannot be caused by the Windows Time service, as it is not running.

    • From your description: "when I switch off on Friday evening, then switch on Monday morning the time is hours or days in the future."
    • This proves the issue is with the hardware's Real-Time Clock (RTC) on the motherboard.

    My recommendation is to update the BIOS/UEFI firmware on all affected Samsung Galaxy Book4 laptops.

    After that you should verify that the new software policy has been successfully applied.

    • On an affected laptop, open an administrative Command Prompt and run w32tm /query /configuration.
    • The output of this command will provide undeniable evidence of success or failure.
    • If the NtpServer now shows time.windows.com,0x9, you have proven that the new policy has fixed the software configuration problem.

    Hope this clears things up! If you find this guidance helpful, you're welcome to click 'Accept Answer'—it helps others find useful solutions too.

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