Odd ping times (4294967277) using tracert command

[TorturedChaos]

So I noticed here at work when using the tracert command I get very odd ping times sometimes. Here is an example:
Tracing route to google.com [74.125.67.100]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms 4294967277 ms 4294967277 ms RV082.SME [192.168.1.1]
2 4294967284 ms 4294967284 ms 4294967284 ms rb-bras.ka.centurytel.net [69.29.186.7]
3 4294967286 ms 4294967284 ms 4294967286 ms klslmtcoro1.klslmtcoro1.centurytel.net [209.206.184.2]
4 1 ms 2 ms 2 ms 12.127.70.13
5 82 ms 79 ms 82 ms cr1.st6wa.ip.att.net [12.122.146.22]
6 80 ms 79 ms 79 ms cr1.cgcil.ip.att.net [12.122.31.161]
7 81 ms 79 ms 79 ms cr1.cl2oh.ip.att.net [12.122.2.206]
8 80 ms 79 ms 82 ms cr2.cl2oh.ip.att.net [12.122.2.126]
9 80 ms 102 ms 82 ms cr2.phlpa.ip.att.net [12.122.2.210]
10 80 ms 79 ms 79 ms cr1.wswdc.ip.att.net [12.122.4.54]
11 80 ms 79 ms 79 ms 12.122.135.149
12 72 ms 72 ms 72 ms 12.88.155.14
13 81 ms 79 ms 79 ms 216.239.48.112
14 80 ms 79 ms 82 ms 216.239.48.69
15 97 ms 87 ms 82 ms 72.14.239.127
16 93 ms 84 ms 87 ms 209.85.255.190
17 79 ms 79 ms 79 ms gw-in-f100.1e100.net [74.125.67.100]

Trace complete.

Now those lines that say '4294967277' load up instantly, but what is with those numbers? just a glitch?

also, (noobish question time) why are there 3 ping times??

 

[LookinAround]

Those large and strange looking numbers are an anomaly of sort. What's happening:
> Windows is calculating a negative number for the ping time!
> Those large numbers are actually the machine's representation of a negative number being printed as a ping time (which is unsigned integer)! So the number results to being displayed as a very large unsigned integer

These are probably caused by clocks being out of sync (seems to happen somehow more often now with multi-core processors in use).

Google (including the double quotes) "negative ping time"

 

[TorturedChaos]

ok thx.

one other question, why are there 3 sets of numbers? does it ping each node 3 times?

EDIT

and after googleing that and reading THIS page it might explain why my computer at work gets so slow after running for 4-5 hours.

From my discussions with AMD I have pieced together the following likely issue with the dual core processors. It seems there is a timing issue between the two cores that slowly causes the timing to drift further and further apart between the two cores. This is why rebooting the machine temporarily fixes the syptoms; atleast for a couple of hours. The longer the system is up the worse the problem appears to get until simple tasks such as web browsing and copying files becomes untolerable.

and guess whats running a.... AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual Core Processor