what is clearing cmos

[Guest]

ok, as most of you know, i am a new here and planning on building my first pc soon. Sooooo.. what is clearing the cmos? aaaannnndd i am getting my p4 2.8 retail, should i get arctic silver too?

 

[paulj]

CMOS: A small, battery-backed memory bank in a personal computer that holds configuration (BIOS) settings.

BIOS: A startup routine in a PC that enables users to reconfigure hardware settings that are stored in a small, battery-backed memory bank. Although today's BIOSs can detect new drives and update their settings automatically, older PCs required manual entering of disk parameters after a new drive was installed.

All BIOSs let you get to their settings at startup. Immediately after turning the machine on, a message is displayed that tells you which key to press (typically the DEL or F1 key). If there is no message on screen, refer to your system manual.

The BIOS setup has also been called the "CMOS setup" or the "CMOS RAM," because the settings are held in a tiny CMOS memory bank in the chip.

<font color=red>The solution may be obvious, but I can't see it for the smoke coming off my processor.</font color=red>

 

[jlanka]

just to go a little further, to clear CMOS means to switch a jumper on the mobo for around 10 secs (or so) while the PS is unplugged. Or something like that (the manual will have specific instructions for your board). It's done when you've screwed up some setting and the board won't POST. It reverts back to default settings.

<i>It's always the one thing you never suspected.</i>

 

[Guest]

thanks alot. So when you clear your cmos are you are setting it back to its factory settings?

 

[paulj]

More or less. Sometimes you have to reset the CMOS on a brand new board.

<font color=red>The solution may be obvious, but I can't see it for the smoke coming off my processor.</font color=red>

 

[Guest]

oh, ok. Thanks for clearing that up

 

[WingDing]

Some boards don't actually have a switch to reset the CMOS. If not, remove the battery, wait for a minute and replace it. Make sure to re-insert the battery correctly though or you could end up having a really bad day.

I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy