diff --git a/xCAT-genesis-scripts/bin/doxcat b/xCAT-genesis-scripts/bin/doxcat
index 6ff5504c9..4a383982f 100755
--- a/xCAT-genesis-scripts/bin/doxcat
+++ b/xCAT-genesis-scripts/bin/doxcat
@@ -105,7 +105,7 @@ ip addr show dev $bootnic|grep -v 'scope link'|grep -v 'dynamic'|grep -v  inet6|
 ntpd -g -x
 # rv 0 state does not work with the new ntp versions
 #(while ! ntpq -c "rv 0 state"|grep 'state=4' > /dev/null; do sleep 1; done; hwclock --systohc) &
-(while [ "`ntpq -c \"rv 0 offset\" | grep \"offset=\" | awk -F \"=\" '{print $2}' | awk -F \".\" '{print $1}'`" -ge 1000 ]; do sleep 1; done; hwclock --systohc) &
+(while [ "`ntpq -c \"rv 0 offset\" | grep \"offset=\" | awk -F \"=\" '{print $2}' | awk -F \".\" '{print $1}' | sed s/-//`" -ge 1000 ]; do sleep 1; done; hwclock --systohc) &
 if dmidecode|grep IPMI > /dev/null; then
 	modprobe ipmi_si
 	modprobe ipmi_devintf