I have a machine that anytime the machine is off, time stands still. If the machine is left running, it loses time slowly. When you reboot after letting it set and lose some time, it somehow, magiclly gets back the time it lost while setting idle.

Now comes the funky part.

We upgraded the whole system due to a power surge, the only things useable were the hard drive (Maxtor UATA133 60GB) and the 16x Creative Labs DVD ROM (which died on the bench)...

Hardware installed was:
Soyo P4s DRAGON Ultra
P4 1.8GHz
256MB DDR370 PC 3000
XFX GF4 MX440
LT Winmodem
Pioneer 16x DVD ROM
Mitsumi 1.44 MB
300 Watt PS

Customer has said that this problem has afflicted the system before and after the upgrade, what are the chances of a battery doing this? or even more unlikley, hard drive or it's contents.

Opinions please?!?!?!