Surprises with CMOS battery change out

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mint
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M

Mint

I found a CR 2032 battery that was .4 volts higher voltage than the
old one.

So I powered off the computer and changed it out.

Getting a few messages to confirm things in my browser. :-)

I have a program somewhere that saves the CMOS savings.

Andy
 
Mint said:
I found a CR 2032 battery that was .4 volts higher voltage than
the old one.

So I powered off the computer and changed it out.

Getting a few messages to confirm things in my browser. :-)

I have a program somewhere that saves the CMOS savings.

Andy
Click to expand...

Huh?
 
Mint said:
I found a CR 2032 battery that was .4 volts higher voltage than the
old one.

So I powered off the computer and changed it out.

Getting a few messages to confirm things in my browser. :-)

I have a program somewhere that saves the CMOS savings.

Andy
Click to expand...


The cmos battery must be 3 volts
 
Richard Brooks said:
There is at least one DOS program out there which has a CMOS
table save (with filename naming feature) and CMOS table burn to
floppy disk feature.
Click to expand...

Speaking of trivia...

Hopefully you know that "CMOS" is a material type that can refer
to practically any semiconductor, not just the BIOS. It might be
acceptable terminology to some, but it sounds a bit weird to
anyone who knows better.

Apparently my motherboard has the ability to save the BIOS
settings to the hard drive (do not know if it is plain text), but
is there a third-party program that manages that for any modern
BIOS? Like what?
 
Speaking of trivia...

Hopefully you know that "CMOS" is a material type that can refer
to practically any semiconductor, not just the BIOS. It might be
acceptable terminology to some, but it sounds a bit weird to
anyone who knows better.

Apparently my motherboard has the ability to save the BIOS
settings to the hard drive (do not know if it is plain text), but
is there a third-party program that manages that for any modern
BIOS? Like what?
Click to expand...

CMOSSave

And it's nice and small too.

Make sure you store the saved BIOS on a secondary drive or USB stick
also.

Andy
 
Mint said:
CMOSSave

And it's nice and small too.
Click to expand...

Right, it's not like a CAD program.
Make sure you store the saved BIOS on a secondary drive or USB
stick also.

Andy
Click to expand...

It probably does not work, since it would have to be written for a
specific BIOS type and version.
 
John said:
Right, it's not like a CAD program.


It probably does not work, since it would have to be written for a
specific BIOS type and version.
Click to expand...

All the CMOSSave does, is write a copy of the 256 bytes in the
CMOS RAM, to a disk file. And later, put that back if the user wants.
As long as you restore the image, to the same motherboard model,
running the same BIOS release, then the definitions would
remain consistent.

There is at least one web page out there, that documents what
some of the CMOS RAM locations are used for.

Paul
 
Paul said:
All the CMOSSave does, is write a copy of the 256 bytes in the
CMOS RAM, to a disk file. And later, put that back if the user
wants. As long as you restore the image, to the same motherboard
model, running the same BIOS release, then the definitions would
remain consistent.
Click to expand...

The CMOSSave documentation says it does not work on Windows higher
than 98. It also includes a silly sounding statement "We need a
way to restore a known working CMOS configuration". That really
stretches the terminology, in fact it is a BIOS configuration.
There is at least one web page out there, that documents what
some of the CMOS RAM locations are used for.
Click to expand...

Like for an IBM PC AT?

http://www.bioscentral.com/misc/cmosmap.htm

Hopefully you do know that complementary metal oxide silicon
(CMOS) is a semiconductor material type that can refer to
practically any integrated circuit. The terminology might be
common, but it sounds silly IMO when referring to the BIOS.

Maybe personal computer (BIOS) were one of the best first
applications for CMOS circuits, and PC enthusiasts were giddy
about the low power technology. And that way (or some other way)
was born the odd CMOS terminology.

I learned most of what I know about electronics from using the
National Semiconductor 1988 CMOS Logic Data Book, one reason the
loose "CMOS" terminology sounds odd to me.

Expressions do not always follow their literal meaning and I can
accept that, but is there anything about "CMOS", besides the fact
that it is very low power, that relates it to a personal computer
BIOS?
 
John said:
The CMOSSave documentation says it does not work on Windows higher
than 98. It also includes a silly sounding statement "We need a
way to restore a known working CMOS configuration". That really
stretches the terminology, in fact it is a BIOS configuration.


Like for an IBM PC AT?

http://www.bioscentral.com/misc/cmosmap.htm

Hopefully you do know that complementary metal oxide silicon
(CMOS) is a semiconductor material type that can refer to
practically any integrated circuit. The terminology might be
common, but it sounds silly IMO when referring to the BIOS.

Maybe personal computer (BIOS) were one of the best first
applications for CMOS circuits, and PC enthusiasts were giddy
about the low power technology. And that way (or some other way)
was born the odd CMOS terminology.

I learned most of what I know about electronics from using the
National Semiconductor 1988 CMOS Logic Data Book, one reason the
loose "CMOS" terminology sounds odd to me.

Expressions do not always follow their literal meaning and I can
accept that, but is there anything about "CMOS", besides the fact
that it is very low power, that relates it to a personal computer
BIOS?
Click to expand...

My first design at work, was done in 4000 series CMOS :-) That was back in
1980 or so.

The reference to "CMOS RAM" bothered me at first, but like
"Labrador Retriever", it's just a name.

There is an explanation here, of the genealogy of the name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMOS_RAM

"It was traditionally called CMOS RAM because it used a low-power
Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) SRAM (such as the
Motorola MC146818 or similar) powered by a small battery when
system power was off."

This is back in the days, when silicon still cost money. The
chip they reference, only had 50 bytes of storage for BIOS settings.
Amazing - the date showing on the first page, is 1984. This is a
scan of a databook from that era (because this databook pre-dates
PDF).

http://www.datasheetcatalog.org/datasheet/motorola/MC146818AS.pdf

A few of the logic blocks, even inside the most modern chipsets,
still resemble some of those old chips. And it's done, to keep the
software happy.

Paul
 
Mint said:
It's common for batteries to show a little more than rated
voltage.

Andy
Click to expand...

Please provide an English translation of "confirming things in my
browser". In other words... What does your browser have to do with
the BIOS?
 
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