Meaning a person of high rank or distinction is attested from c.1500 in English; as a longer way to say person, the word was in use from 1550s (but often slyly ironical, with suggestion that the subject is overly self-important).
If your system is standalone, the default sync interval for system time is 604800 seconds (7 days). If you are in a domain environment, the default sync interval is 3600 seconds (0.04166667 days). If you are using XP Pro, you can adjust your settings using Group Policy editor (GPedit - Administrative Templates\System\Windows Time Service\Time Providers) or you can adjust things through a registry edit (works for any version of XP).
TIP: Make Windows synchronize time more often The information below is from a cool tip I found: Make Windows synchronize time more often. This page explains how to make the Windows network time (NTP) client synchronize its time more often than the default once per week. This was tested on Windows 7 but should work with Windows XP and above.