Grab your Phillips, it's...
The Latest from The Screwdriver List!
1) If you remove the battery *long enough* the capacitor you refer to will
discharge and the BIOS will be reset to the factory defaults.
2) If you move the jumper in the prescribed way and reboot, that
combination of actions will (on some machines) reset the BIOS.
3) You can almost always find a place in the BIOS setup routine to load the
factory defaults--or either of two sets of default values, if you wish.
4) If you short the battery terminals (with the battery out, of course),
that will very likely reset the BIOS.
5) If you short the battery terminals with the battery in place--or do
anything that resembles that, you very likely will produce at puff of
smoke--or worse! DON'T TRY THIS ONE AT HOME, PLEASE.
6) I don't think you need to reset the BIOS contents before flashing it
with an update--but it sure would be a good idea to write down all the
settings so you can restore them if the flashing operation overwrites them,
as it very well might.
Finally, I note that this is not really in answer to the problem that
started this discussion, as I agree that most likely the culprit was simply
an incorrect type (or incorrectly installed) cable.
John
At 03:46 PM 4/10/01 -0400, you wrote:
>Grab your Phillips, it's...
>The Latest from The Screwdriver List!
>
>
>OK! What is the relationship between the cmos and the bios? Before flashing
>or updating a bios, should the setup defaults be loaded? If this is done,
>why should it be done after? I understand that just removing the battery
>will not necessarily clear the cmos because of a capacitor holding a charge
>which I believe is discharged by shorting (clearing the cmos) the designated
>pins or pads on some motherboards. If I clear the cmos pins or pads with the
>battery in place, isn't that shorting the battery also?
=======
John M. Goodman, Ph.D., author of "Peter Norton's Inside the PC," Seventh
Edition (Sams 1997, ISBN 0-672-31041-4), and Eighth Edition (Sams 1999,
ISBN 0-672-31532-7).
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