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Pleonasm

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	CMOS Backup Jul 8^th, 2005 at 5:58pm What utilities exist for creating a CMOS backup under Windows XP? My understanding is that the settings contained on the CMOS chip will disappear if the PC motherboard’s battery needs to be replaced. Therefore, having a CMOS backup and a way to restore the CMOS settings can be beneficial. Thank you for your assistance.
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	Re: CMOS Backup Reply #1 - Jul 9^th, 2005 at 3:19am Pleonasm I used this utility for my system when I replaced the battery: BIOS 1.35.1 But, if you replace the battery quickly (it took about 15-20 seconds for mine), the charge is maintained and I did not have to do a restore.
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Pleonasm

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Re: CMOS Backup
Reply #2 - Jul 11^th, 2005 at 6:17pm

NightOwl, thank you for the reference.

For the interested reader of this thread, additional CMOS backup utilities may be found at http://sac-ftp.externet.hu/utilmisc6.html and http://lists.gpick.com/pages/CMOS_Tools.htm.

Perhaps the most ‘professional’ of such utilities is WinRescue (http://www.superwin.com), a tool that provides CMOS backup functionality together with other troubleshooter/crash fixer options.

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DaddyO

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	Re: CMOS Backup Reply #3 - Jul 11^th, 2005 at 8:19pm How do you know if your battery needs replacing?
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Pleonasm

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Re: CMOS Backup
Reply #4 - Jul 15^th, 2005 at 10:50am

A story is told of the early days of manned space flight.... The Americans spent millions of dollars inventing a pen that would work in the weightless of space. The Russians used a pencil.

The morale of the tale is that sophistication does not always make a superior solution. To backup my CMOS BIOS settings, I simply copied them onto paper. Low-tech, yes; but effective.

Total investment of time: less than 30 minutes. Now, if I ever need to restore those settings for whatever reason, I'll be prepared.

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Re: CMOS Backup
Reply #5 - Jul 15^th, 2005 at 11:14am

Pleonasm

Here's another possible low tech solution if your computer supports this--one of mine does--the other doesn't:

When I boot and enter the BIOS on the sytem that does support this, I can use 'Print Screen', and it prints out what's shown on the screen.

On some screens, the information requires more room than fits on a single screen--so here I print the first part, then scroll so the next part shows, and then 'Print Screen' that second part, etc., until I have all the various pages.

On my system, two screens fit per printer page--then I force the page to print and eject with the printer's eject page button--I do this so information does not overflow onto a second page of a single 'pinrt sceen' page.

I was very unhappy when I discovered my second computer did not support the 'print screen' within the BIOS Sad

!

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	Re: CMOS Backup Reply #6 - Jul 18^th, 2005 at 1:03pm DaddyO Quote: How do you know if your battery needs replacing? My clock started loosing over a half minute per day! I've seen reports where the BIOS settings are lost from boot-to-boot, and have to be reset upon re-boot.
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Rad

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Re: CMOS Backup
Reply #7 - Jul 18^th, 2005 at 1:17pm

Back when I had the CUSL2 mobo:

http://cusl2.radified.com/

.. there were some problems I could only fix by yanking the battery (looks like a thin nickel). I recall I had to remove the battery for 15-45 secs in order to reset to defaults. It was never exactly the same. Sometimes 15 secs was enough. Other times, 30 wasn't enough.

I came to the point that I always left it out for 2 mins .. that always cleared the old settings.

The good news is that, if you hurry, and can charge the battery in less that 10 secs, you stand a good chance of not having to reconfigure your mobo settings.

I love to get in there and play with BIOS settings, but this can sometimes lead to trouble.

Speaking of which, I just flashed the firmware on my new wireless router (Linksys WRT54G) yesterday .. and had to reconfigure everything. =/

The big question is: How long are the mobo batteries good for?

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mosley

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	Re: CMOS Backup Reply #8 - Jul 19^th, 2005 at 12:47pm Quote: When I boot and enter the BIOS on the sytem that does support this, I can use 'Print Screen', and it prints out what's shown on the screen. I think this will only work with parallel printers, not USB. Like Pleonasm, I myself wrote them down. This took about 30 minutes, but is worth it.
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Dan Goodell

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	Re: CMOS Backup Reply #9 - Jul 19^th, 2005 at 9:32pm Rad wrote on Jul 18^th, 2005 at 1:17pm: Speaking of which, I just flashed the firmware on my new wireless router (Linksys WRT54G) yesterday .. and had to reconfigure everything. =/ Just curious: what version did you flash it to, and why? (Last yr I flashed my WRT54G with a wifi-box 2.00.8 version, and love it.)
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Rad

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	Re: CMOS Backup Reply #10 - Jul 19^th, 2005 at 10:18pm v4.00.7 = the latest http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?childpagename=US%2FLayout&packedargs=c%...
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Brian

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Re: CMOS Backup
Reply #11 - Jul 20^th, 2005 at 12:23am

Quote:

Speaking of which, I just flashed the firmware on my new wireless router (Linksys WRT54G) yesterday .. and had to reconfigure everything. =/

I have a Linksys WRT54GS router. I flashed to firmware 4.50.6 today and found I couldn't access the internet whenever the wireless card was enabled. The Internet Gateway would just disappear. The Internet Gateway would reappear when I disabled the wireless card and used the wired connection.

I gave up and flashed the previous firmware, 3.37.2, and it works again.
To answer Dan Goodell,
Quote:

and why?

"No good reason".

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	Re: CMOS Backup Reply #12 - Jul 20^th, 2005 at 1:00am Some see a newer firmware version and ask, "Why?" .. I see one and ask, "Why not?" Ditto .. for no good reason .. just to do it and maybe learn something in the process .. which I did .. which was "don't flash unless you have to".
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	Re: CMOS Backup Reply #13 - Jul 20^th, 2005 at 2:41am Rad Quote: "don't flash unless you have to" But look at the version history and they tell you at least some of the reasons they released the updated version--seems worth the effort! I'm in the 'see a new version--why not!!!' category !
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Brian

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	Re: CMOS Backup Reply #14 - Jul 20^th, 2005 at 6:34am Yes, I'll try the next firmware when it's released. Too hard to resist. Did you get your new firmware working Rad? I didn't.
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