You the man for making a video out of this specific issue. I actually learned to clear CMOS with a screwdriver watching one of your videos. For many many years I use the little jumper thing that comes on old mobos and optical drives to clear the CMOS. Your method is so much easier and works as intended.
It has a little risk on it, if your hands are shaky you could short something else and this could be a big problem if you do not power down and unplug your system AS YOU SHOULD! Also dropping the screwdriver or holding it wrong, applying too much pressure and bending something is possible but this has a very low chance to become a problem even if you do this 1000 times. Finally, yes I also reset with a screwdriver.
ha ya same. I mean the jumper method works, but certainly haven't seen a jumper in maybe 20 years either, where i have an endless supply of screwdrivers. I also don't miss setting slave/master on drives and disks.
If you get really frustrated or doubt that the CMOS is actually clearing you can remove the CMOS battery from its housing. That's how we did it back in the olden times.
In my experience, usually jumping the pins or removing the battery for a second or two does the trick, but it's a good idea to wait the little bit of extra time just to be safe. Not like you can over-reset it, after all.
That's why I enjoy your content. Your honesty to help others and for free. Keep up the awesome work Mr. Salazar, all of us learn new things on your content. Thank you and everyone that helps you create your show!
Actually, the CMOS nowadays consists of a NVRAM chip (non-volatile) but motherboard manufacturers kept the shortcut of clearing the cmos by taking out the battery bcz people were/are used to this. But, yes, in the past the chips actually were volatile chips
It's my understanding that modern boards still contain a small amount of RAM in the RTC which _is_ volatile. That part hasn't changed. Vendors just default the "removing the battery" step to clearing whatever's also stored on flash because there'd really be no other reason to remove it apart from preventative maintenance.
@@dr.stephenstange4979 that is Not correct. In fact you can see The NVRAM on nearly every UEFI Mainboard. Also in The past, the BIOS was saved on ROM, which was non volatile. If The BIOS was saved in volatile way, The BIOS would bei gone, If Battery was empty/mailfunctioning once. That would bei pretty dumb. Raspberry Pis dont have one. The MB Producer Compaq even Had Mainboards without CMOS Chip.
@@GregSalazar I had a lenovo laptop and thats how I learned the hard way bios use NVRAM on UEFI implementations. TLDR I bios modded it to unlock wifi limits (and I got unlocked bios options as well). I changed one settings too many and the system stopped booting! and I had no way to load defaults. removing power + cmos cell, did nothing. settings are written to the same chip UEFI is on, so by reflashing the modded bios, I got back my vanilla settings. I would assume the same goes for desktops. shorting the pins or removing the battery runs a small line of code that erases the NVRAM. which would be why you would assume you need power to be ON (standby). maybe not every manufacturer checks the RTC (volatile), and if emtpy, reset bios settings..., and in that case. no power, reseat battery = no clearing of bios.
It is clearly seen that every time you have screwed, you haven't screwed with confidence. In 70% of your videos, you aren't screwing anything at all, as there must be power in the system for the screwing to take place. Without power, when if you attempt to screw, it will screw without confidence. In fact 90% of the screws in your video, are without confidence.
been building pc's and repairing clients pc's for 20+ years now, i just remove the cmos battery to clear the bios...nothing wrong on how Mr. Salazar fix computers..., watched all of his fix or flop videos...i enjoyed everything and learned a lot from him...😀
Just to be clear: What's happening when you do this is that the UEFI firmware on the board runs specific code to clear out the UEFI variable store. The variable store is _not_ battery backed, but rather in NOR flash. Exactly how this can be triggered, and also what gets erased, varies between motherboards - some will fully reinitialize the variable store, others just flag all or some UEFI variables as no longer valid. (Think of the variable store as a small file system inside your BIOS chip.) Because so many people are familiar with "clearing CMOS" by removing the battery, from back in the days when CMOS was actually a thing, most motherboards (but not all - gamer/enthusiast boards usually will, but OEM and professional boards often not) will trigger an NVRAM reset if an invalid RTC date is detected. This, however, is emulated behavior, and can be quite inconsistent between boards. Also, motherboard makers really need to start labeling that jumper or button "clear NVRAM" or "reset BIOS settings", depending on what it actually does; calling it "CMOS clear" is ambiguous due to the complexity of the UEFI variable store (e.g. it may or may not fix a boot failure caused by a malformed variable entry, as opposed to just bad overclock settings, depending on how "CMOS clear" was implemented).
Pretty sure that user will be deleting their UA-cam account after they watch this. Greg always responds with class. One of my favorite channels to follow.
Love the video. It was straight and to the point. No three hour video with excessive talking about everything not related to the topic at hand. Great job Greg. Keep 'em coming. You've got my vote.
UGH. This is one of the reasons why I cannot be a UA-camr. You have way more patience than me, Greg. I have reset the CMOS hundreds of times over the years, and i always use the "remove CMOS battery" method, and barring some isolated incidents, it works. So i cannot even begin to fathom what that guy was talking about. Thank you Greg and sorry you had to deal with that. Upside, you got some useful content from it lol.
Probably it's the confusion between "reset BIOS settings" and "Flashing/updating BIOS". BIOS (motherboard firmware) is stored in CMOS (the physical chip). In my understanding, it is NVM. It retain it's data even without battery. BIOS settings, on the other hand, needs battery. If it's removed, the settings will be cleared. So the settings must be stored in volatile memory. Flashing BIOS then, of course, needs electricity, so you need the motherboard to be connected to the wall. Reset BIOS have to be done when the power is cut off. Correct me if I'm wrong.
I have never tried it the way he wrote it. Now I wonder, what happens if you leave the PC plugged in (but turned off) and hit the button/jump/remove the battery?
Great video! I think we should all thank Lavir for their comment coz I'm not sure we would get a video on CMOS clearing otherwise. I think it looked like something so simple for Greg that making this prob wouldn't cross his mind. I for one am happy to realize I didn't get things wrong with my self-taught understanding of CMOS, and it was nice hearing about volatile memory froma professional :)
Obviously mobo manufacturers want you to short out pins on your board while power is on that way when you short the wrong pins you get to buy a whole new mobo!!
Sometimes when I remove the cmos battery for only a short amount of time, the settings do not get cleared completely and I end up with weird issues. Then I have to remove the battery a 2nd time, turn off and unplug the psu, drain the power from the board and wait a full 5 minutes before putting the battery back in. Then it works perfectly.
I’m the filthy casual that removes the CMOS battery because sometimes I’m too lazy to search up where the clear cmos header is. Hopefully that commenter is at least willing to admit they’re wrong after watching this video
Just a small addition. I just the other day had to clear cmos on an ASUS X570 board. None of the usual methods worked so I went to the manual. It stated to not only remove the battery but to also short across the battery contacts. My guess is they must have a really good cap on that circuit because that is the only thing that eventually worked. Shorting the pins and removing the battery for over 10 minutes did nothing. I'm sure leaving the battery out even longer would work but I'm not that patient.
Also worth pointing out that if you do turn your PC on and its clock is wrong chances are that CMOS battery is dead and needs replacing they don't last for ever.
You forgot to add...after it's been unplugged or through a power outage. A normal shutdown will hold the C-MOS settings, date,, & time even with a bad C-MOS battery by getting supplemental power from the outlet.
It has happened to me before that I remove the battery for the CMOS completely, wait a few minutes, put it back in and turn on the PC and the bios settings are still the same as they were. Is this normal? Only has happened with a ASUS A320-MK but it happened to me at least 4 times before, (thankfully my new mother has a cmos clear button).
I have the same cmos battery housing as you in this video but when i push the clip to the side in order to free the battery, it won't come out.. it's like it's stuck ugh
i have a gigabyte B550 aorus elite v2, i always turn power off and take the cmos battery out for 30seconds.. then put it back in, uno it works cuz when u go in bios it tells you, you have reset ur bios.
hi, any exprince on hp ellitedesk g6 , i forgot my bios password, and by removing battery or shorting the pins or holding rest bottom, the password is still there, eventhogh after tuning on the device ,message appears factory rest due to loss of batter, any advice
Many years ago I upgraded the ram in my PC I had at the time, and I was just learning about the workings of PCs (I had an old Dell before that that I had fitted an old school slave/master HDD configuration, and that was it). Just like with the Dell, when I fitted this ram I looked it up on the internet first to make sure I was doing things properly, and did exactly the same when I fitted my first graphics card as well. One of the things that was mentioned was if your PC does not post after fitting the ram, reset the CMOS and the only way they told you how to do it was the final option in this video, remove the battery for about 10 mins. Since then this is how I have done it. I have only had to do it one other time, and that is on my current PC when guess what, I upgraded the ram. I actually forgot about resetting the CMOS and started panicking, pulling the ram out, reseating my original ram etc. Once I calmed down I did a quick google search on my phone and the first thing that popped up was CMOS .. it all came flooding back and worked perfectly. I never knew there was a reset button on some boards or about the jumper pins until I started watching your videos. The fact the whole point of the CMOS is to make sure your bios is saved and stuff like the clock is still running, should tell anyone that the CMOS battery is what is supplying the power to it, and that it does not need external power to run. If the CMOS needed power to work, then every PC anyone buys or motherboard would not work properly when you buy them, because they have not had power going through them for some time potentially.
Already know how to clear the CMOS but I found it funny that you made a dedicated video as a response to a very confident incorrect comment. Also that CMOS battery placement on that board is very convenient, typically see them myself nearby the bottom right and in some boards gets covered by the GPU.
The commenter was talkin about Gigabyte boards. My Gigabyte Aorus B560i Pro AX manual is saying that always turn off your computer and unplug power cord from the power outlet before clearing the CMOS. And this is how it has been since my first clear CMOS in like 1998. 🤣
I got a second hand board and it had a bios password. I've tried the battery but when I put it back and boot password lock is still there .. any suggestions?
today i tried to clear cmos. and when i shorted cnos clear pins with my scrowdriver pc started up but without any display and also keyboard and mouse does not detects. did i killed my mobo?
After 2 years of my using my new gaming PC. Mother board Asus Darkhero VIII . I got error message when booting: Please enter setup to recover BIOS settings. Press F1 to run Setup. I have replaced the CMOS battery with new one still get this problem. If I leave my computer unplugged for 4 weeks I loose the system date and time after changing the batttery is this normal? How can I fix this issue?
idk if anyone will see this but i need some computer help im struggling with i will launch windows and play some games for a while but after a long period of time i will be sitting at the windows home screen or watching hulu and my monitors will lose signal and my computer bricks up, the only way to shut it down is hold the power button down for 6 plus seconds. if anyone can help that would be appreciated
I clear my cmos with power Cord in Slot , I only shut down my pc..... , it's cleared the bios but I think I damaged something. My Sound is Popping just a bit , or I have in eventlog some Information about Acpi/ CPU things but not as a Error or warning. Only as a information.
I removed the cmos battery for 10 mins. Popped it back in. Still can’t access my cpu because I put a bios password on previously and don’t know what the password is. HELP PLEASE
Hey Greg, My motherboard somewhat got grounded, my audio jack and microphone jack is grounded, same goes with the Case jack. What could be the cause of this problem?
I had to clear the CMOS, I tried to short out the pins with the power off, but that didn't work for some reason, maybe the power needed to be on, but I wasn't going to short out pins with the power on. I had to remove the battery, that worked fine as you would expect.
Very informative video, but I will say, you both have a good point. I typically reset the bios with the computer on and have had better results than pulling the battery or using the jumper alone. Either one will work, but if you have a motherboard that is so stubborn and will not boot or post, I HIGHLY suggest powering it up and jumping it 3-4 times till it posts. Once it posts install a new bios and be done with it.
Hey @Greg Salazar how can I send an aio to you ? I have a ibuypower aio that pooped out on me after 4 months of owning the system. I called them before my 1 year warranty was up and they said they couldn’t do anything about it and wouldn’t take it to be recycled. Was going to throw it out but it might be better for you to do some experiments on it !
How does one clear cmos on a mobile phone logic board? Particularly an LG V930. I was given a extra logic board/mother board for my V930 but, I'm a little hesitant to use it without clearing it. But, I see no reset, or battery or pins, like you're showing in your video. Any ideas?
Hey there Greg Salazar. I just saw your video on clearing the CMOS. How about a stubborn Asus Z270-AR. I tried almost everything to clear the CMOS. Unplugged the power. Short cutted the CMOS pins on the board. I removed the battery of the board. Unfortunately nothing seems to work., Even Asus is puzzled about this. I still keep getting the messge "After setting upIntel Optane memory or the RAID configuration was build SATA Mode Se;ection must be changed to RAIDmode to avoid unknown issues". Now I run on a Z270-AR board with an i7 6700 Skylark CPU. 2 nvme m.2 sticks. One is 550 GB for windows, the other is a 2TB just for storage. Along with a GPU RTX 3060 12GB. With 32GB of memory. I always need to press F1 and then F8 to from boot manager to boot windows. And after an update or reboot I need to shortcut the pins to reset and start allover again from F1. How can I solve that issue. I really appreciate your input on this
My board is the b660 prime and the circular cmos battery I don’t have, mine is squared and doesn’t come off the board but I have the 2 little pins but I tried that method and it didn’t work, I installed new ram and just keep getting black screen even when I put back in my old ram can you help?
i thought it just keeps time now, settings are kept in a small storage chip and the manufacturers kept the tradition of removing the CMOS to reset them
Ok but what if clearing the CMOS doesnt work? Like it either takes u to a bluescreen to repair but it doesnt do anything or it takes u into the bios and even if u just click save it still doesnt work what do u do then? Or if after all that u press F5 for it to go into default settings and it still black screens or blue screens or takes u into bios? What do u do then? I feel like ive tried clearing CMOS multiple times, ive put it on default many times too and nothing worked I have an asus prime motherboard z790 lga 1700 Edit: i also dont know where the pins are and the back of my pc doesnt have a reset cmos button unfortunately so ive just been removing the battery Earlier today it worked then i had the bright idea of trying to overclock again It worked Then again it failed Then tried fixing it and failed And then i changed some stuff in bios and it worked which was great and then i shut it off after a while Came back home and turned my pc on just to be taken back into bios
if you remove the battery, and the power is disconected, you can hold down the power button for 10-20 seconds to drain any residual power from the system instead of waiting 5-10minutes, this is the trick I use, works every time.
Nice, I always drained the capacitors after removing the battery, but don't think it makes any difference I suppose as long as the PSU isn't getting plugged or if it's turned off completely.
I have a 9th gen MSI mobo and the 3x that i cleared CMOS is EXACTLY as Greg shows in this video. The MSI mobo manual also says to first pull the plug out of the wall socket then press the Power on button for 5 seconds before shorting the clear cmos pins.
We used to remove the battery back in the days all the time but it only took 5-10 seconds for that to work. I don't know if it's so different today that it takes 10 minutes as I don't use that method anymore. But one of my pcs I had a few years ago had a dead battery and if I unpluged it from power or just switched the psu off for a few seconds, the bios settings would reset.
hello hope you or someone can asnwer me, does clearing the cmos will solve my problem? i have , i think, cold boot problems after i have changed my GPU ( from 2070 to 4070 ti super , i plan to upgrade mobo cpu and ram in 1 years but for now i have an i9 9900k and z390m tuf). when i first start the pc i have black screen, like my gpu doesn't exist, i have to shut down the pc and boot again and all work perfectly fine
@@xHaloWarsFanx used to be anything. Today it's a legacy port, so it's only used if a specialty peripheral can't be replaced or redesigned, e.g. data capture, point of sale, industrial controls. At 33MHz you could even DIY/experiment
This is the gigabyte instruction You may clear CMOS to revoke previous BIOS password. Please turn off power and remove power cord from motherboard before clear CMOS. To clear CMOS, you may follow the instruction below: If there is a [CMOS_SW] button on motherboard, just press this button to clear CMOS. If there is a CLR_CMOS (Clearing CMOS Jumper) jumper on the motherboard, you may place a jumper cap to temporarily short the two pins or use a metal object like a screwdriver to touch the two pins for a few seconds. (You may refer to the manual about where CLR_CMOS located.) If there is no CLR_CMOS jumpers or [CMOS_SW] button on the motherboard, please follow the steps to clear CMOS: Take out the battery gently and put it aside for about 10 minutes or longer. (Or you can use a metal object to connect the two pins in the battery holder to make them short-circuited.) Re-insert the battery to the battery holder. Connect power cord to MB again and turn on power. After clear CMOS, please press DEL to enter BIOS and select [Load fail-Safe Defaults] or [Load Optimized Defaults] then save changes and reboot the system.
Clearing cmos is cutting power from the battery like you say.. it's also why removing he battery also clears cmos.... I don't know why that person so so confident and decided on calling you out when even plenty of manuals tell you to have the system off.
So... is it 70%, 90%, 100%? Seems they're very confused about how often their misconception is the case. Their confusion could have been solved with a quick Google to find that EVERY single guide to clear CMOS includes removing power from the system. I love how they were so confident that typed up that essay.
And if your having weird issues with your computer booting, you could always try replacing the CMOS battery with a new one (most commonly a CR2032). Believe it or not, I have had to replace the battery in my X470 motherboard, which is not very old!
My Thinkpad has been running with a dead CMOS battery for years, just reset the time and date before booting it up and it's good to go. Do you have to memorize all the settings in the Bios before you remove the battery, what if you forget an item?
@@wilsont1010 Unless you've done some customization, usually just activating the "load defaults" will do fine. Just don't forget to put your memory profile back on if you had one selected, since it tends to reset those to "none/disabled."
My Gigabyte motherboard (X570) came with an empty CMOS-battery. I can confirm that the CMOS gets cleared every time without a battery so yes, cutting the power will clear it, or not having power in my case. It really sucks that a company like Gigabyte ships these motherboards with empty batteries. In my case the shop sent a new one. (Yes, I verified the orientation of the battery and I even tried out the battery inserted reversed to make certain)
The comment you refer to is quite comical to me as every Gigabyte board I've used has stated that you need to remove power from the PC and either jump the CLR_CMOS pins or remove the battery. Even my Asus Prime X570-Pro lists the first step in section 1.1.7 pg 1-9 as "Turn OFF the computer and unplug the power cord." I've used both jumpers from old HDD's to clear the CMOS and a flat head screwdriver, anything metal that can make contact with the 2 pins will do the trick, just have to be careful is all.
I have a Gigabyte motherbord and i had to clear the CMOS recently. I removed the battery and powered down the PSU for about 20 seconds and the CMOS was cleared. I believe there was no need to power down the PSU on the switch but i wanted to guarantee there was no remaining energy on the capacitors that could possibly "feed" energy to the CMOS. So the statement that all gigabyte MB should be on to clear CMOS is false. Also, the purpose of the battery is to maintain the BIOS powered so it maintain its memory at all times, even when the PC is disconected from the wall. If the BIOS loses power it will loose its configuration so i think theres no need to explain more why that statement is wrong.
Thank you ! My pc wouldn't boot properly ( no display) this morning and the DRAM then CPU mboard light kept shining red. After testing with things I had figured out my pc would boot only with one ram stick at a time in slot 1or 2 but could not boot on dual channel. After a lot of cleanup and more reading, I figured that maybe clearing the CMOS would help, and it did, dual channel works again and pc is booting fine !
I always owned Asus boards for the past 33 years I have an Msi beacuse it was only the one in stock :), and ad per Asus instruction, was to shutoff system ,remove battery and clear cmos jumper for 10 seconds .
1 minute in, yeah, after 18 years in IT AND being A+ Certified, OP is full of it. As a gigabyte motherboard owner, he is 90% WRONG (ASK ME HOW I KNOW LAVIR). Thanks for calling them out Greg.
Now, I could be wrong, but afaik modern systems do use non-volatile memory chips to hold the UEFI. So while you can remove any power source and any changes you did to the UEFI will "stick", manufactuers decided to use that "i removed the cmos battery" to force a bios reset anyway. (or what that other post said)
I'm trying to figure out how the commenter got it so wrong, and the best explanation I can come up with is that they thought that jumping the pins is sending power to the BIOS chip to somehow do the erasing. But even if that was true then you could still theoretically clear the CMOS using the "power" from the CMOS battery, because it's a battery and it has power. What does he think the battery is for then? 🤣 But fair play to Greg for handling this in such a polite manner.
So I was wondering if my current computer problem has something to do with the cmos. It was working fine before, but I was unplugging it one night and the outlet sparked up and nearly electrocuted me. Now everytime I turn on my computer, it keep saying it's on power saving mode. It also tells me to wake it up by pressing a key on the keyboard or moving the mouse, but nothing happens. I've tried removing the RAM and cleaning it, and I tried taking out the cmos and putting it back in. But nothing works. I was wondering if the cmos could be shorted out due to the sudden shock and if replacing it would solve my problem. I have a refurbished Dell Optiplex.😢 Anything helps!
From a Gigabyte manual: "Use this jumper to clear the BIOS configuration and reset the CMOS values to factory defaults. To clear the CMOS values, use a metal object like a screwdriver to touch the two pins for a few seconds. Always turn off your computer and unplug the power cord from the power outlet before clearing the CMOS values."
That board is the perfect example to actually prove what was stated at around the 3:26 mark. I had an X58 Asus motherboard similar to the one showed here (X58 P6T Deluxe V1 IIRC), same vertical CMOS battery holder; one of the pins (there should be three, in my case the middle one bent way too much during shipping) that connected that "vertical holder" was broken, so the battery was efectively doing nothing since it couldn't supply any power to the motherboard. All it took to reset the BIOS entirely was for me to unplug the system from the wall for a few seconds.
You can do all those steps to be absolutely sure the CMOS is cleared, but I personally had a 100% success rate just touching the clear CMOS pins or pushing the button for a split second, at the rate I have to clear the CMOS on some days, If I did all those steps I'd never get anything done. No disconnecting power, no discharging caps, no removing battery. Maybe my method won't work on some boards, but on all my boards for the past 20 years it worked just like that. I never owned Gigglebyte boards though, so maybe I just got lucky.
Most boards these days gave at least a few LED's so they drain the latent power on their own, they go out in a second or 2 indicating the board is drained but if you have an older board holding the power is a quick step.
![What To Do AFTER Building a Gaming PC! 😄 [BIOS, Drivers & Windows 11 Install!]](/img/n.gif)
You the man for making a video out of this specific issue. I actually learned to clear CMOS with a screwdriver watching one of your videos. For many many years I use the little jumper thing that comes on old mobos and optical drives to clear the CMOS. Your method is so much easier and works as intended.
It has a little risk on it, if your hands are shaky you could short something else and this could be a big problem if you do not power down and unplug your system AS YOU SHOULD!
Also dropping the screwdriver or holding it wrong, applying too much pressure and bending something is possible but this has a very low chance to become a problem even if you do this 1000 times.
Finally, yes I also reset with a screwdriver.
ha ya same. I mean the jumper method works, but certainly haven't seen a jumper in maybe 20 years either, where i have an endless supply of screwdrivers. I also don't miss setting slave/master on drives and disks.
if you remove the battery for about 10 minutes the bios will be cleared, works the same as jumping pins
If you get really frustrated or doubt that the CMOS is actually clearing you can remove the CMOS battery from its housing. That's how we did it back in the olden times.
Removing the batt is a trick from 1999....
In my experience, usually jumping the pins or removing the battery for a second or two does the trick, but it's a good idea to wait the little bit of extra time just to be safe. Not like you can over-reset it, after all.
On my pc the cmos is reset already when I turn off the psu and hold the power for like 10 seconds
I'f I'm resetting the CMOS I'm already saying a little prayer so no need to rush.😰
@@richardbottom9843 Replace the battery, like any battery they still need to be replaced eventually.
You missed a fourth option: You can easily clear your CMOS by dunking your fully powered on PC in the bathtub.
It didn’t work
@@ashwaw7410 Shocking.
That's why I enjoy your content. Your honesty to help others and for free. Keep up the awesome work Mr. Salazar, all of us learn new things on your content. Thank you and everyone that helps you create your show!
Thanks Greg! This video was a lifesaver!
Actually, the CMOS nowadays consists of a NVRAM chip (non-volatile) but motherboard manufacturers kept the shortcut of clearing the cmos by taking out the battery bcz people were/are used to this. But, yes, in the past the chips actually were volatile chips
It's my understanding that modern boards still contain a small amount of RAM in the RTC which _is_ volatile. That part hasn't changed. Vendors just default the "removing the battery" step to clearing whatever's also stored on flash because there'd really be no other reason to remove it apart from preventative maintenance.
NVRAM is available only on server based mobos not daily use mobos
@@dr.stephenstange4979 that is Not correct. In fact you can see The NVRAM on nearly every UEFI Mainboard. Also in The past, the BIOS was saved on ROM, which was non volatile. If The BIOS was saved in volatile way, The BIOS would bei gone, If Battery was empty/mailfunctioning once. That would bei pretty dumb. Raspberry Pis dont have one. The MB Producer Compaq even Had Mainboards without CMOS Chip.
@@flipsundsalti1949 okay that was new i didn't knew about it. Thanks for expanding my knowledge buddy ☺️
@@GregSalazar I had a lenovo laptop and thats how I learned the hard way bios use NVRAM on UEFI implementations.
TLDR I bios modded it to unlock wifi limits (and I got unlocked bios options as well). I changed one settings too many and the system stopped booting!
and I had no way to load defaults. removing power + cmos cell, did nothing.
settings are written to the same chip UEFI is on, so by reflashing the modded bios, I got back my vanilla settings.
I would assume the same goes for desktops.
shorting the pins or removing the battery runs a small line of code that erases the NVRAM.
which would be why you would assume you need power to be ON (standby).
maybe not every manufacturer checks the RTC (volatile), and if emtpy, reset bios settings..., and in that case. no power, reseat battery = no clearing of bios.
It is clearly seen that every time you have screwed, you haven't screwed with confidence. In 70% of your videos, you aren't screwing anything at all, as there must be power in the system for the screwing to take place. Without power, when if you attempt to screw, it will screw without confidence. In fact 90% of the screws in your video, are without confidence.
_mind blown_
😂😂😂
Screw in with confidence. I rike his style.
been building pc's and repairing clients pc's for 20+ years now, i just remove the cmos battery to clear the bios...nothing wrong on how Mr. Salazar fix computers..., watched all of his fix or flop videos...i enjoyed everything and learned a lot from him...😀
Just to be clear: What's happening when you do this is that the UEFI firmware on the board runs specific code to clear out the UEFI variable store. The variable store is _not_ battery backed, but rather in NOR flash. Exactly how this can be triggered, and also what gets erased, varies between motherboards - some will fully reinitialize the variable store, others just flag all or some UEFI variables as no longer valid. (Think of the variable store as a small file system inside your BIOS chip.)
Because so many people are familiar with "clearing CMOS" by removing the battery, from back in the days when CMOS was actually a thing, most motherboards (but not all - gamer/enthusiast boards usually will, but OEM and professional boards often not) will trigger an NVRAM reset if an invalid RTC date is detected. This, however, is emulated behavior, and can be quite inconsistent between boards.
Also, motherboard makers really need to start labeling that jumper or button "clear NVRAM" or "reset BIOS settings", depending on what it actually does; calling it "CMOS clear" is ambiguous due to the complexity of the UEFI variable store (e.g. it may or may not fix a boot failure caused by a malformed variable entry, as opposed to just bad overclock settings, depending on how "CMOS clear" was implemented).
Pretty sure that user will be deleting their UA-cam account after they watch this. Greg always responds with class. One of my favorite channels to follow.
Why?
Love the video. It was straight and to the point. No three hour video with excessive talking about everything not related to the topic at hand. Great job Greg. Keep 'em coming. You've got my vote.
thank you so much for this video! the screwdriver trick got my pc back up and running!
this whole video, had me thinking of the Staples "Easy" button... love it.
UGH. This is one of the reasons why I cannot be a UA-camr. You have way more patience than me, Greg. I have reset the CMOS hundreds of times over the years, and i always use the "remove CMOS battery" method, and barring some isolated incidents, it works. So i cannot even begin to fathom what that guy was talking about. Thank you Greg and sorry you had to deal with that. Upside, you got some useful content from it lol.
Thanks for watching! Just comes with the territory hahah!
I did not come here for the first 1:40 of this video. Absolutely useless intro followed by an ad. Waste of time.
Probably it's the confusion between "reset BIOS settings" and "Flashing/updating BIOS".
BIOS (motherboard firmware) is stored in CMOS (the physical chip). In my understanding, it is NVM. It retain it's data even without battery.
BIOS settings, on the other hand, needs battery. If it's removed, the settings will be cleared. So the settings must be stored in volatile memory.
Flashing BIOS then, of course, needs electricity, so you need the motherboard to be connected to the wall.
Reset BIOS have to be done when the power is cut off.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
I have never tried it the way he wrote it. Now I wonder, what happens if you leave the PC plugged in (but turned off) and hit the button/jump/remove the battery?
Great video! I think we should all thank Lavir for their comment coz I'm not sure we would get a video on CMOS clearing otherwise. I think it looked like something so simple for Greg that making this prob wouldn't cross his mind. I for one am happy to realize I didn't get things wrong with my self-taught understanding of CMOS, and it was nice hearing about volatile memory froma professional :)
Obviously mobo manufacturers want you to short out pins on your board while power is on that way when you short the wrong pins you get to buy a whole new mobo!!
LOL
Can i replace the CMOS battery while the system is on? I'm upgrading my parents Acer 885 desktop and it's been awful. No xmp yada yada yada.
Sometimes when I remove the cmos battery for only a short amount of time, the settings do not get cleared completely and I end up with weird issues. Then I have to remove the battery a 2nd time, turn off and unplug the psu, drain the power from the board and wait a full 5 minutes before putting the battery back in. Then it works perfectly.
I’m the filthy casual that removes the CMOS battery because sometimes I’m too lazy to search up where the clear cmos header is. Hopefully that commenter is at least willing to admit they’re wrong after watching this video
Just a small addition. I just the other day had to clear cmos on an ASUS X570 board. None of the usual methods worked so I went to the manual. It stated to not only remove the battery but to also short across the battery contacts. My guess is they must have a really good cap on that circuit because that is the only thing that eventually worked. Shorting the pins and removing the battery for over 10 minutes did nothing. I'm sure leaving the battery out even longer would work but I'm not that patient.
Love the channel Greg! Thank you for all your great content
Also worth pointing out that if you do turn your PC on and its clock is wrong chances are that CMOS battery is dead and needs replacing they don't last for ever.
You forgot to add...after it's been unplugged or through a power outage.
A normal shutdown will hold the C-MOS settings, date,, & time even with a bad C-MOS battery by getting supplemental power from the outlet.
I've actually gotten a few dead(does not power on at all) PC's to boot again just by replacing a dead cmos battery.
It has happened to me before that I remove the battery for the CMOS completely, wait a few minutes, put it back in and turn on the PC and the bios settings are still the same as they were. Is this normal? Only has happened with a ASUS A320-MK but it happened to me at least 4 times before, (thankfully my new mother has a cmos clear button).
I have the same cmos battery housing as you in this video but when i push the clip to the side in order to free the battery, it won't come out.. it's like it's stuck ugh
Poor lad didn't understand the concept of a battery lmao
i have a gigabyte B550 aorus elite v2, i always turn power off and take the cmos battery out for 30seconds.. then put it back in, uno it works cuz when u go in bios it tells you, you have reset ur bios.
i got boot loop on me pc and c mas not hellping and taiking out ram stick not hellp wat to do?
hi, any exprince on hp ellitedesk g6 , i forgot my bios password, and by removing battery or shorting the pins or holding rest bottom, the password is still there, eventhogh after tuning on the device ,message appears factory rest due to loss of batter, any advice
Many years ago I upgraded the ram in my PC I had at the time, and I was just learning about the workings of PCs (I had an old Dell before that that I had fitted an old school slave/master HDD configuration, and that was it).
Just like with the Dell, when I fitted this ram I looked it up on the internet first to make sure I was doing things properly, and did exactly the same when I fitted my first graphics card as well.
One of the things that was mentioned was if your PC does not post after fitting the ram, reset the CMOS and the only way they told you how to do it was the final option in this video, remove the battery for about 10 mins. Since then this is how I have done it. I have only had to do it one other time, and that is on my current PC when guess what, I upgraded the ram.
I actually forgot about resetting the CMOS and started panicking, pulling the ram out, reseating my original ram etc. Once I calmed down I did a quick google search on my phone and the first thing that popped up was CMOS .. it all came flooding back and worked perfectly.
I never knew there was a reset button on some boards or about the jumper pins until I started watching your videos.
The fact the whole point of the CMOS is to make sure your bios is saved and stuff like the clock is still running, should tell anyone that the CMOS battery is what is supplying the power to it, and that it does not need external power to run.
If the CMOS needed power to work, then every PC anyone buys or motherboard would not work properly when you buy them, because they have not had power going through them for some time potentially.
Already know how to clear the CMOS but I found it funny that you made a dedicated video as a response to a very confident incorrect comment.
Also that CMOS battery placement on that board is very convenient, typically see them myself nearby the bottom right and in some boards gets covered by the GPU.
The commenter was talkin about Gigabyte boards. My Gigabyte Aorus B560i Pro AX manual is saying that always turn off your computer and unplug power cord from the power outlet before clearing the CMOS. And this is how it has been since my first clear CMOS in like 1998. 🤣
I got a second hand board and it had a bios password. I've tried the battery but when I put it back and boot password lock is still there .. any suggestions?
today i tried to clear cmos. and when i shorted cnos clear pins with my scrowdriver pc started up but without any display and also keyboard and mouse does not detects. did i killed my mobo?
After 2 years of my using my new gaming PC. Mother board Asus Darkhero VIII . I got error message when booting: Please enter setup to recover BIOS settings. Press F1 to run Setup. I have replaced the CMOS battery with new one still get this problem. If I leave my computer unplugged for 4 weeks I loose the system date and time after changing the batttery is this normal? How can I fix this issue?
Is there any power draw at all on the CMOS battery when you are plugged into AC and the power supply is on?
is contact cleaner (wd) good alternative for Isopropyl alcohol 99.9% it's hard to find here, or 70% iso will do? thanks
idk if anyone will see this but i need some computer help im struggling with i will launch windows and play some games for a while but after a long period of time i will be sitting at the windows home screen or watching hulu and my monitors will lose signal and my computer bricks up, the only way to shut it down is hold the power button down for 6 plus seconds.
if anyone can help that would be appreciated
I clear my cmos with power Cord in Slot , I only shut down my pc..... , it's cleared the bios but I think I damaged something.
My Sound is Popping just a bit , or I have in eventlog some Information about Acpi/ CPU things but not as a Error or warning.
Only as a information.
I removed the cmos battery for 10 mins. Popped it back in. Still can’t access my cpu because I put a bios password on previously and don’t know what the password is. HELP PLEASE
What type of motherboard is that? And if you can make a rig with it like old school PC game
Hey Greg, My motherboard somewhat got grounded, my audio jack and microphone jack is grounded, same goes with the Case jack. What could be the cause of this problem?
I had to clear the CMOS, I tried to short out the pins with the power off, but that didn't work for some reason, maybe the power needed to be on, but I wasn't going to short out pins with the power on. I had to remove the battery, that worked fine as you would expect.
Very informative video, but I will say, you both have a good point. I typically reset the bios with the computer on and have had better results than pulling the battery or using the jumper alone. Either one will work, but if you have a motherboard that is so stubborn and will not boot or post, I HIGHLY suggest powering it up and jumping it 3-4 times till it posts. Once it posts install a new bios and be done with it.
Hey @Greg Salazar how can I send an aio to you ? I have a ibuypower aio that pooped out on me after 4 months of owning the system. I called them before my 1 year warranty was up and they said they couldn’t do anything about it and wouldn’t take it to be recycled. Was going to throw it out but it might be better for you to do some experiments on it !
How does one clear cmos on a mobile phone logic board? Particularly an LG V930. I was given a extra logic board/mother board for my V930 but, I'm a little hesitant to use it without clearing it. But, I see no reset, or battery or pins, like you're showing in your video. Any ideas?
broooooo you're my hero man I followed you step by step and it work
Hey there Greg Salazar. I just saw your video on clearing the CMOS. How about a stubborn Asus Z270-AR. I tried almost everything to clear the CMOS. Unplugged the power. Short cutted the CMOS pins on the board. I removed the battery of the board. Unfortunately nothing seems to work., Even Asus is puzzled about this. I still keep getting the messge "After setting upIntel Optane memory or the RAID configuration was build SATA Mode Se;ection must be changed to RAIDmode to avoid unknown issues".
Now I run on a Z270-AR board with an i7 6700 Skylark CPU. 2 nvme m.2 sticks. One is 550 GB for windows, the other is a 2TB just for storage. Along with a GPU RTX 3060 12GB. With 32GB of memory.
I always need to press F1 and then F8 to from boot manager to boot windows. And after an update or reboot I need to shortcut the pins to reset and start allover again from F1. How can I solve that issue. I really appreciate your input on this
My board is the b660 prime and the circular cmos battery I don’t have, mine is squared and doesn’t come off the board but I have the 2 little pins but I tried that method and it didn’t work, I installed new ram and just keep getting black screen even when I put back in my old ram can you help?
did you find a solution bro please ? im in the same case
If I do all 3 procedures, Hold the bottom on back of MoBo, use screwdriver on the two pins and remove the battery, it will be ok.?
Can k have my gpu installed on the computer when i short the CMOS pins?
i thought it just keeps time now, settings are kept in a small storage chip and the manufacturers kept the tradition of removing the CMOS to reset them
Ok but what if clearing the CMOS doesnt work? Like it either takes u to a bluescreen to repair but it doesnt do anything or it takes u into the bios and even if u just click save it still doesnt work what do u do then?
Or if after all that u press F5 for it to go into default settings and it still black screens or blue screens or takes u into bios? What do u do then?
I feel like ive tried clearing CMOS multiple times, ive put it on default many times too and nothing worked
I have an asus prime motherboard z790 lga 1700
Edit: i also dont know where the pins are and the back of my pc doesnt have a reset cmos button unfortunately so ive just been removing the battery
Earlier today it worked then i had the bright idea of trying to overclock again
It worked
Then again it failed
Then tried fixing it and failed
And then i changed some stuff in bios and it worked which was great and then i shut it off after a while
Came back home and turned my pc on just to be taken back into bios
if you remove the battery, and the power is disconected, you can hold down the power button for 10-20 seconds to drain any residual power from the system instead of waiting 5-10minutes, this is the trick I use, works every time.
Nice, I always drained the capacitors after removing the battery, but don't think it makes any difference I suppose as long as the PSU isn't getting plugged or if it's turned off completely.
Cmos placement on that board is amazing :D
I'm more surprised to see a CMOS battery mounted on its side!
Can you change the CMOS battery while powered on to prevent loss of BIOS settings? Thanks.
lol the idea of clearing the cmos battery IS to clear the bios settings..
I have a 9th gen MSI mobo and the 3x that i cleared CMOS is EXACTLY as Greg shows in this video.
The MSI mobo manual also says to first pull the plug out of the wall socket then press the Power on button for 5 seconds before shorting the clear cmos pins.
We used to remove the battery back in the days all the time but it only took 5-10 seconds for that to work. I don't know if it's so different today that it takes 10 minutes as I don't use that method anymore. But one of my pcs I had a few years ago had a dead battery and if I unpluged it from power or just switched the psu off for a few seconds, the bios settings would reset.
hello hope you or someone can asnwer me, does clearing the cmos will solve my problem? i have , i think, cold boot problems after i have changed my GPU ( from 2070 to 4070 ti super , i plan to upgrade mobo cpu and ram in 1 years but for now i have an i9 9900k and z390m tuf). when i first start the pc i have black screen, like my gpu doesn't exist, i have to shut down the pc and boot again and all work perfectly fine
It always amazes me to see people so confident in what they have Zero idea they're talking about!!! Rotfl!!!! Great vid Greg!!!!!
Do I have to remove the mother board or can I just shut down the power with it unplugged ?
i have never been able to clear cmos with power on never worked always had to completely cut power off
My question, the MOBO you used for demo has a PCIE slot that was backwords. how come it's like that? what items are used in that slot?
What makes a PCIE slot backwards? Both lane order and polarity are reversible in the spec
@@shanent5793 it’s hard to explain. The bottom PCIE slot has the whole thing flipped 180. At time 2:31
@@xHaloWarsFanx if you mean the very last slot, that's not PCIe, but a 5V 32bit PCI connector. PCI was the standard bus before PCI Express
@@shanent5793 gotcha. I understand that now. What items would use that slot typically?
@@xHaloWarsFanx used to be anything. Today it's a legacy port, so it's only used if a specialty peripheral can't be replaced or redesigned, e.g. data capture, point of sale, industrial controls. At 33MHz you could even DIY/experiment
Is there a release to press to remove the battery?
Interestingly mine requires actually hitting the power on the psu or the button doesn't work
This is the gigabyte instruction You may clear CMOS to revoke previous BIOS password. Please turn off power and remove power cord from motherboard before clear CMOS. To clear CMOS, you may follow the instruction below:
If there is a [CMOS_SW] button on motherboard, just press this button to clear CMOS.
If there is a CLR_CMOS (Clearing CMOS Jumper) jumper on the motherboard, you may place a jumper cap to temporarily short the two pins or use a metal object like a screwdriver to touch the two pins for a few seconds. (You may refer to the manual about where CLR_CMOS located.)
If there is no CLR_CMOS jumpers or [CMOS_SW] button on the motherboard, please follow the steps to clear CMOS:
Take out the battery gently and put it aside for about 10 minutes or longer. (Or you can use a metal object to connect the two pins in the battery holder to make them short-circuited.)
Re-insert the battery to the battery holder.
Connect power cord to MB again and turn on power.
After clear CMOS, please press DEL to enter BIOS and select [Load fail-Safe Defaults] or [Load Optimized Defaults] then save changes and reboot the system.
Clearing cmos is cutting power from the battery like you say.. it's also why removing he battery also clears cmos.... I don't know why that person so so confident and decided on calling you out when even plenty of manuals tell you to have the system off.
So... is it 70%, 90%, 100%? Seems they're very confused about how often their misconception is the case. Their confusion could have been solved with a quick Google to find that EVERY single guide to clear CMOS includes removing power from the system. I love how they were so confident that typed up that essay.
steps starting from 4:35 thanks me later. sorry, greg for skipping.
It hurts my head you were put in the position to make this video but I love you for it
And if your having weird issues with your computer booting, you could always try replacing the CMOS battery with a new one (most commonly a CR2032). Believe it or not, I have had to replace the battery in my X470 motherboard, which is not very old!
Yep, changed cmos battery on a laptop that wouldnt boot. Instant boot. Those batteries can last years.. but not all are infallible. Lol
My Thinkpad has been running with a dead CMOS battery for years, just reset the time and date before booting it up and it's good to go. Do you have to memorize all the settings in the Bios before you remove the battery, what if you forget an item?
@@wilsont1010 Unless you've done some customization, usually just activating the "load defaults" will do fine. Just don't forget to put your memory profile back on if you had one selected, since it tends to reset those to "none/disabled."
My Gigabyte motherboard (X570) came with an empty CMOS-battery. I can confirm that the CMOS gets cleared every time without a battery so yes, cutting the power will clear it, or not having power in my case. It really sucks that a company like Gigabyte ships these motherboards with empty batteries. In my case the shop sent a new one. (Yes, I verified the orientation of the battery and I even tried out the battery inserted reversed to make certain)
I have cleared my cmos with the psu flipped on, and I might have to refer to my motherboard manual before doing it again, just in case :/
The comment you refer to is quite comical to me as every Gigabyte board I've used has stated that you need to remove power from the PC and either jump the CLR_CMOS pins or remove the battery. Even my Asus Prime X570-Pro lists the first step in section 1.1.7 pg 1-9 as "Turn OFF the computer and unplug the power cord." I've used both jumpers from old HDD's to clear the CMOS and a flat head screwdriver, anything metal that can make contact with the 2 pins will do the trick, just have to be careful is all.
Will clearing the CMOS remove past firmware/bios updates that messed up the motherboard?
I have a Gigabyte motherbord and i had to clear the CMOS recently.
I removed the battery and powered down the PSU for about 20 seconds and the CMOS was cleared.
I believe there was no need to power down the PSU on the switch but i wanted to guarantee there was no remaining energy on the capacitors that could possibly "feed" energy to the CMOS.
So the statement that all gigabyte MB should be on to clear CMOS is false.
Also, the purpose of the battery is to maintain the BIOS powered so it maintain its memory at all times, even when the PC is disconected from the wall.
If the BIOS loses power it will loose its configuration so i think theres no need to explain more why that statement is wrong.
Thank you ! My pc wouldn't boot properly ( no display) this morning and the DRAM then CPU mboard light kept shining red. After testing with things I had figured out my pc would boot only with one ram stick at a time in slot 1or 2 but could not boot on dual channel. After a lot of cleanup and more reading, I figured that maybe clearing the CMOS would help, and it did, dual channel works again and pc is booting fine !
Does the screwdriver need to have a magnetic tip?
I always owned Asus boards for the past 33 years I have an Msi beacuse it was only the one in stock :), and ad per Asus instruction, was to shutoff system ,remove battery and clear cmos jumper for 10 seconds .
It didn’t work for me my mb still has no bios
I like to use something to jump the connectors of the battery holder on the motherboard to be even more sure that the cmos is resetting.
1 minute in, yeah, after 18 years in IT AND being A+ Certified, OP is full of it. As a gigabyte motherboard owner, he is 90% WRONG (ASK ME HOW I KNOW LAVIR). Thanks for calling them out Greg.
Yep, I also am A+ certified, and I remember a question on the exam about clearing the CMOS. Greg is spot on regarding the correct methods.
Now, I could be wrong, but afaik modern systems do use non-volatile memory chips to hold the UEFI. So while you can remove any power source and any changes you did to the UEFI will "stick", manufactuers decided to use that "i removed the cmos battery" to force a bios reset anyway.
(or what that other post said)
I'm trying to figure out how the commenter got it so wrong, and the best explanation I can come up with is that they thought that jumping the pins is sending power to the BIOS chip to somehow do the erasing. But even if that was true then you could still theoretically clear the CMOS using the "power" from the CMOS battery, because it's a battery and it has power.
What does he think the battery is for then? 🤣
But fair play to Greg for handling this in such a polite manner.
That "Lavir" guy was so busy criticizing about electricity , he forgot what the CMOS battery is for 🤣
What do you do if the battery is soldered onto the board
So I was wondering if my current computer problem has something to do with the cmos. It was working fine before, but I was unplugging it one night and the outlet sparked up and nearly electrocuted me. Now everytime I turn on my computer, it keep saying it's on power saving mode. It also tells me to wake it up by pressing a key on the keyboard or moving the mouse, but nothing happens. I've tried removing the RAM and cleaning it, and I tried taking out the cmos and putting it back in. But nothing works.
I was wondering if the cmos could be shorted out due to the sudden shock and if replacing it would solve my problem.
I have a refurbished Dell Optiplex.😢
Anything helps!
Have you tried a different power supply, would be my first guess.
@@raifthemad Oh, I fixed it! I got a new power cord and it works fine now. I'm guessing the shock caused the cord to have a short in it or something.
You can also reset the CMOS by cutting all power. No batteri or cables
From a Gigabyte manual:
"Use this jumper to clear the BIOS configuration and reset the CMOS values to factory defaults. To clear
the CMOS values, use a metal object like a screwdriver to touch the two pins for a few seconds.
Always turn off your computer and unplug the power cord from the power outlet before clearing
the CMOS values."
You might need to send a charge through the chip to jump it into action , Sorry wrong
Those who know, *do* .
Those who don't know, try to *teach* .
Lavir heart was in the right place. Its just his brain wasn't.
Said that I did.
Full send on this disinformation Greg. 🔥
That board is the perfect example to actually prove what was stated at around the 3:26 mark.
I had an X58 Asus motherboard similar to the one showed here (X58 P6T Deluxe V1 IIRC), same vertical CMOS battery holder; one of the pins (there should be three, in my case the middle one bent way too much during shipping) that connected that "vertical holder" was broken, so the battery was efectively doing nothing since it couldn't supply any power to the motherboard. All it took to reset the BIOS entirely was for me to unplug the system from the wall for a few seconds.
Thank you, this help fixed my Bluetooth Driver problem!! ❤️❤️❤️
5:48 two-pin jumpers are also like a penny+shipping for 100, so don't even need to use a screwdriver
You can do all those steps to be absolutely sure the CMOS is cleared, but I personally had a 100% success rate just touching the clear CMOS pins or pushing the button for a split second, at the rate I have to clear the CMOS on some days, If I did all those steps I'd never get anything done. No disconnecting power, no discharging caps, no removing battery. Maybe my method won't work on some boards, but on all my boards for the past 20 years it worked just like that. I never owned Gigglebyte boards though, so maybe I just got lucky.
Most boards these days gave at least a few LED's so they drain the latent power on their own, they go out in a second or 2 indicating the board is drained but if you have an older board holding the power is a quick step.
I beg to differ. I was taught clearing CMOS required multiple smashes with a sledgehammer? When did it change? 🤣🤣