clear cmos w/o battery

I've heard if you want to clear the CMOS memory, you need to remove the battery for the mobo for like 15 seconds, others have said like 10 minutes.... anybody know how long it takes? And does it at all?

How long it takes depends, 10 minutes would be plenty (a minute or two is probably enough, extra time is for certainty). There's probably a jumper on the mobo to do it without removing the cmos battery at all, removal is if you want to be positive, or can't find that jumper.

(^^;?

Probably it relies on the quality of eep roms and its quantity (256k or so), but not only so, because someone reported that it took a few days to clear CMOS.

We can shut down the power supply by removing the battery. But its discharging is another matter. it depends upon enviromental electrical conditions.

So much so that, 15sec or 10min is from one's experience. It is not reliable, but you may rely on your neighbor's word first.

(^^;(No Warranty!)

OK, thanx.... was just curious in case, computer-gods forbid, I should ever be in a posision to need to, 'cause I don't think I still have the frickin mobo manual

Thanx

actually the time depends on the rating of the capacitor installed on the M/b. Intel original P4 desktop M/b have a 2500 microfarad capacitor. thats about 5mins 45 sec. worth of reserve power. intel server boards have a much larger capacitor, giving them 3 hours of backup. so u take out the battery and wait for about 10 mins for the capacitor to discharge and some more minutes just to be sure.