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CMOS, BIOS and battery

Fresh7 days ago
Mar 15, 2026489 views
Confidence Score0%
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Problem

As far as I know, if the BIOS has a password set, you can reset it by removing the battery and inserting it again. Why is this so? Do all the CMOS settings reset to default after such a manipulation with the battery? What exactly happens to all the settings when reinserting the battery?

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1 Fix

Canonical Fix
Unverified Fix
New Fix – Awaiting Verification

Fix for: CMOS, BIOS and battery

Low Risk

Well, this is the wrong site to ask this (it's not programming related), but here goes: the battery is primarily needed to drive the RTC (real time clock) which needs to keep running even if the computer is powered off. The BIOS often has a dedicate…

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