Does December 31, 1969 mean anything to you?

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Level 1

19 points

Does December 31, 1969 mean anything to you?

this has happened 3 times (I think) to my iBook now -- I'll start it up, and it alerts me my date & time setting are set at a date before -this time said- before March 27, 2007. Then it says some programs may act erratically due to this.
When I go into Date & Time, the date, all 3 times, has been December 31, 1969.
(The hour is off, too, like I think this time it said something like 6:03pm when it was 8:43pm).

As far as I can tell nothing is affected, and after resetting the date, everything works fine.
The first time happened when I had the installed Tiger OS the iBook came with; the 2nd was soon after I upgraded to Leopard; the 3rd was maybe 30 minutes ago.

It doesn't seem to mess anything up, but I was kinda curious if anyone else has experienced this, or may know why it happens, or if I should be concerned at all?

iBook G4, Mac OS X (10.5.1)

Posted on Feb 6, 2008 7:05 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Malcolm Rayfield

Level 7

28,117 points

Feb 6, 2008 7:10 PM in response to scorposo

The Unix date is stored as a number where zero is midnight at the start of January 1st, 1970. Your time-zone must be making this show as 31st December 1969. Those dates are usually caused by a dead battery on the logic board. It is supposed to keep the clock running when the computer is unplugged.

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Answer 2

scorposo Author

Level 1

19 points

Feb 6, 2008 7:19 PM in response to Malcolm Rayfield

Thanks.

I also googled the date just a minute ago, and saw the stuff about the epoch date & January 1, 1970-- then the time zone changes it back to Dec 31st...
So- if it's something like a dead battery on the logic board causing it - would that be something I could, or should get replaced?
The times it happened were very spread out.

I have been a little concerned about my iBook lately, thinking it's getting kinda old... and I have been somewhat rough on it over the years. Maybe it's due for a general check-up anyway.

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Answer 3

Lamen

Level 1

20 points

Mar 14, 2008 12:00 PM in response to scorposo

My IBOOK's battery would run out of juice and the laptop would revert to Dec 31, 1969. Hitting the time server always brought it back to the present. I just ran some software updates and now when the battery goes dead, the date reverts to 4/1/76. Google that date and we find out that is the creation date for apple, kind of funny.

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Answer 4

AK_Mike

Level 4

1,233 points

Mar 14, 2008 2:59 PM in response to scorposo

This usually means that the backup / clock battery in your workstation or laptop is no longer holding a charge.

Replace it, set the date and time, and you are good to go for quite a while.

Some older iMac and PowerMac computers would prematurely discharge the backup battery if the PMU circuits had crashed or you pressed the PMU reset button to many times.

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Answer 5

Mar 15, 2008 8:34 PM in response to scorposo

This is my birthday. WHY ARE YOU TORMENTING ME?!

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Answer 6

scorposo Author

Level 1

19 points

May 4, 2008 10:54 PM in response to gorkyparc

Thanks for the help, everybody. I haven't stopped by in a while - and even if the answers not certain, it's good to know at least other people have had the problem... It's not like it really messes anything up, anyway.
And... I think it's YOUR birthday that's TORMENTING ME, gorkyparc...

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