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Why does a computer need CMOS?

Updated: 11/6/2022
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βˆ™ 13y ago

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because its easier to change the setup values


I am assuming you mean the CMOS battery. If this is the case the answer is no you do not need a CMOS in the basic sense of what it actually does. However, I know that there are board out there that probably would not function without one.

The only thing I have to ask, is that even if you could boot without the CMOS why would you want to? It is in charge of maintaining the correct time, among many other noncritical and fluctuating data, too unimportant to save to actual hard disk. Without it you would have to boot fresh each time. There would be no advantage to removing the battery.

If you are asking because you don't want important information to carry on, the CMOS would is the least of your worries. However, possible you meant to ask if a computer needs a BIOS. If that was the case, again no but why would you want to.

The BIOS might seem to take a long time to get through to your Operating System but it is what starts your OS and recovers it. As everyone know there are multiple systems out there- windows, mac- linux. Your BIOS is outside, for the most part, of all of these OS's. It is the gatekeeper to all information on your computer. It is in zen with your computer, no matter what happens to your OS's your BIOS will be there to make it right. As it's acronym says it is the Basic Input and Output System, meaning without anything else you can at least input data into your Blue Screen. It is what will open the CD drive so you can insert that recovery CD in the time of need. Any logical person would not put everything they have on a ship then throw off all the life boats. So yes you could do without a BIOS, but when running any modern operating system you should wait the extra time so you don't get a massive paperweight in place of a computer.

Those are my thoughts.

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βˆ™ 13y ago
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βˆ™ 11y ago

To tell the time.

Time is very important for computers - programs have to be run in order, and should take a certain amount of time to complete.

Imagine you lived in space, so there was no sun, and clocks had never been invented - all you can do is float around and think.

In this scenario, it would be very difficult to tell absolute time - only relative time, and even then it would be inaccurate. Sure, thinking about counting from 1 to 100 would take longer than 1 to 10, but some days you might 'think faster' than other days, and the amount of time taken to count to 100 on some days will be longer/shorter than others.

Computers without a means of telling the time are like this. The processor has to have a separate circuit for knowing the absolute time, because if it had to run a program that counts up from 0 to tell the time, when the computer is idle this program could run fast, and when the computer would hang time would stand still (from the computer's point of view).

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CMOS battery of your laptop maintains hard disk, time and date, and other drivers and configuration settings in a CMOS memory. You will see these tiny CMOS batteries connected directly to the laptop’s motherboard.


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Why does a computer turn on if the CMOS battery is removed?

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When you restart your computer the error message cmos setting wrong and cmos cheksum bad comes up?

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