NinjaTrader 8 Fix: Computer Clock Sync & Repair

If you’re a Windows user who happens to day trade using the NinjaTrader 8 trading platform, you should be aware that maintaining an accurate computer clock is really important. In fact, the indicators that you may be relying on could be less accurate due to an inaccurate Windows computer clock/time. Would you like to check right now to see if your computer clock is off? Visit https://time.is and you’ll see how bad it is. You see, a computer’s time will drift because the computer relies on a motherboard battery to maintain time when the computer is powered off. Normally, the Windows operating system should maintain accuracy, but that’s really not the case. Windows tends to allow for many seconds or minutes of inaccuracy to build over time. Therefore, it is up to you, the user/trader, to manually keep your computer clock accurate.

Yes, that means another computer maintenance task for you to do! However, you only need to do this once every two weeks. You could probably set something like this up using the Windows Task Scheduler, but why trust that when Windows fails to maintain accurate time in the first place? I don’t know about you, but I like to do things manually if automatic things fail me. So, in the following steps, you’ll learn how to go about creating a Desktop shortcut that you can use once every two weeks or so to put your computer time back on track.

1. Right-click your Windows Desktop and select the option to create a new shortcut.
2. For the destination/target, type in timedate.cpl. Continue to the next step and specify an arbitrary name, like Time Sync. Complete the steps and you’ll see a shortcut on your desktop.
3. Double-click the shortcut you just created. Go to the Internet Time tab. Click Change settings. Click Update now. Upon any failure, switch to the other time server and try updating again. Repeat until you see a success message. Close out the time windows and wait five minutes.
4. Verify your computer clock is accurate by visiting https://time.is.
5. Start NinjaTrader and feel more confident that you’re trading with an accurate computer clock.
6. Repeat every two weeks or as often as necessary.