Stuttering system clock/Windows oops?
 

For no reason that my novice eye can see, my computer's clock will start to stutter and lag after the computer has been on for several hours. Usually I notice it if I leave it on overnight, but it just started happening now without any specific cause on my part. I have done full virus/spyware/adware checks and they have come up clean. I also have over 50% of my system resources available, so it's not a memory thing. Restarting the system will temporarily fix it and reset the clock to the proper time, but I need a more permanent solution.

One thing that may have done it was when I deleted my WINDOWS\TEMP folder. Well not the folder, the contents (which were taking up 5 GB of my HD). Some screwy stuff has happened since then. Exploring the HD through My Computer has some funky looking displays, and if I try running "configsys" it tells me the program doesn't exist! What did I do? SHould I just reinstall Windows? What needs to be backed up before I do that?

I'm a computer novice, but couldn't you restore prior to the day you made changes to your temp folder? I would get someone else's advice before taking mine.

Normally with a clock problem I would say check the battery on the motherboard as it may need replacing. But that applies more to the clock resetting to the lowest possible date after being unplugged or having the power supply turned off. If I remember correctly, it shouldn't have any bearing on the clock when the PC is on.

And yes, System Restore is an EXCELLENT idea if the OP has it.

A new Windows install would probably fix the problem, though. And if you haven't done a clean install in a year or two, I'd advise it anyway. Make sure you back up any documents (pictures, videos, songs, text files, quicken or turbotax saved files etc.) that you don't want to lose. Anything you downloaded (music, pictures, porn, incriminating evidence, etc.) should fall into this category. If you have any games installed, you may want to download any patches for them. Install files for things like Firefox, Spybot, etc. would save lots of time too. And don't forget your bookmarks. Make a list of them or save them as an HTML file in Firefox. Burn everything to CDs or DVDs if you don't have an external hard drive. Don't even bother with floppys.

Deleting your temp folder shouldn't affect anything
unless something took over your system
running from the temp folder.
In any case it's good to be rid of whatever that was.

Reinstalling older versions of windows
over the top of it's self, won't delete your files
unless you tell it to.
Win XP will delete everything except my documents

My experence with reinstalling is that it
doesn't help half of the time.
a full format clean install is much better

Something that might work is windows update
....you could get lucky

As far as backing up files....
it's good practice to keep a copy of
anything important to you
(easier said than done..I'm about a gig behind :D )
dont forget favorites/address book

To determine if the time loss is a result of a weak computer battery, follow these steps
If it's not the battery microsoft has a knowledge base for that
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=189706&fr=1

Replace the CMOS battery <3

Would the weak battery also make the computer's performance "stutter"? In other words, when the clock starts lagging, the mouse movement starts getting jumpy too and overall performance is strained (despite no difference in reported memory usage)