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Home > Archive > alt.certification.a-plus > October 2003 > Need A Good Laugh?
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Need A Good Laugh?
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| JesseTX 2003-10-26, 11:24 pm |
| From a test question in the Total Recall A+ study material:
"Where is the date and time stored when the computer is turned off?"
You ready for this answer? In the CMOS battery! I am not joking,
that is what it says! I have heard of batteries having a "memory
effect", but that's the first time I have heard of a battery being
able to store data!
| |
|
| After reading all your posts about Total Recall's study material I can only
advice you to burn their shit and forget you ever baught it!!
AT
"JesseTX" <jestxm@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:fp4ppvosvju2q41mn4srqmugs
diiijqhn2@4ax.com...
> From a test question in the Total Recall A+ study material:
>
> "Where is the date and time stored when the computer is turned off?"
>
> You ready for this answer? In the CMOS battery! I am not joking,
> that is what it says! I have heard of batteries having a "memory
> effect", but that's the first time I have heard of a battery being
> able to store data!
| |
| The Pugmaster 2003-10-27, 5:24 am |
| Thanks for the Laugh.
The Pugmaster
"JesseTX" <jestxm@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:fp4ppvosvju2q41mn4srqmugs
diiijqhn2@4ax.com...
From a test question in the Total Recall A+ study material:
"Where is the date and time stored when the computer is turned off?"
You ready for this answer? In the CMOS battery! I am not joking,
that is what it says! I have heard of batteries having a "memory
effect", but that's the first time I have heard of a battery being
able to store data!
| |
| Shadooby 2003-10-27, 10:24 am |
| In article <nc2nb.3653$Px2.1767@newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net>,
torgny@@direcway.com says...
>
>After reading all your posts about Total Recall's study material I can only
>advice you to burn their shit and forget you ever baught it!!
>
Total Recall is voucher seller, the study material is an afterthought bundled
only by regulation in order to sell vouchers. You're SUPPOSED to throw it
away. Consider it to be the wrapper your voucher came in.
>AT
>
>"JesseTX" <jestxm@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:fp4ppvosvju2q41mn4srqmugs
diiijqhn2@4ax.com...
>> From a test question in the Total Recall A+ study material:
>>
>> "Where is the date and time stored when the computer is turned off?"
>>
>> You ready for this answer? In the CMOS battery! I am not joking,
>> that is what it says! I have heard of batteries having a "memory
>> effect", but that's the first time I have heard of a battery being
>> able to store data!
>
>
| |
| JesseTX 2003-10-27, 2:25 pm |
| On Mon, 27 Oct 2003 15:09:22 GMT, shadooby@shadooby.com (Shadooby)
wrote:
>Total Recall is voucher seller, the study material is an afterthought bundled
>only by regulation in order to sell vouchers. You're SUPPOSED to throw it
>away. Consider it to be the wrapper your voucher came in.
I can believe that. But what is also funny is they have a "pass"
guarantee with their material. If you don't pass after 2 tries, they
will refund at least some of the money you paid for the books. Now I
didn't read the fine print and see if that includes when the books are
bundled with the vouchers.
| |
| smackedass 2003-10-27, 4:24 pm |
| Actually, when I've tried to pin some (informed?) people down as to what the
difference between the CMOS and the BIOS is, some people have a hard time
telling exactly what the difference is. Myself, I've seen the two terms
used interchangeably often enough to be confused enough to ask these people.
If anybody has a link that would refer to this issue in detail, I'd love to
see it.
Thanks.
smackedass
JesseTX wrote in message ...
>From a test question in the Total Recall A+ study material:
>
>"Where is the date and time stored when the computer is turned off?"
>
>You ready for this answer? In the CMOS battery! I am not joking,
>that is what it says! I have heard of batteries having a "memory
>effect", but that's the first time I have heard of a battery being
>able to store data!
| |
| Barry Watzman 2003-10-27, 5:24 pm |
| The BIOS is executable CODE stored in a PROM [flash memory these days].
CMOS is the DATA area for the bios, or at least part of it, classically
stored in battery backed up CMOS memory, because one of the items stored
in CMOS is the date and time, which is updated continuously even when
the computer is off. Thus this CMOS memory and the "clock" that updates
it are kept "alive" by the motherboard battery, even when the power is
down. Note that "CMOS" is an extremely low power form of IC memory and
is therefore well suited for battery backup.
In additon to the date/time, among the other information that may be
stored in CMOS memory are the password, hard drive paramters and all or
some of the various chipset and motherboard setup parameters, as well as
a "checksum" so that the system will know if the data becomes invalid
for any reason.
The key point here, again, is that the BIOS is executable CODE, while
the contents of CMOS are DATA. And the reason that it's stored in CMOS
battery backed up RAM is two-fold, first, the clock needs to be kept
running and it's time (stored in CMOS memory) continually updated, even
when the computer is off, and secondly, flash memory has a limited
number of write cycles before it's destroyed, and while the number is
large, if the time was stored in the BIOS' flash memory, the flash
memory would be destroyed by the large number of writes. [Modern flash
memory has a life expectancy of 100,000 to 1,000,000 write cycles, but
there are 31 million seconds in a year]. However, since only the time
is HIGHLY variable, the motherboard and BIOS vendor have quite a bit of
flexibility as to which parameters are stored in the BIOS flash memory,
and which are stored in CMOS memory.
smackedass wrote:
> Actually, when I've tried to pin some (informed?) people down as to what the
> difference between the CMOS and the BIOS is, some people have a hard time
> telling exactly what the difference is. Myself, I've seen the two terms
> used interchangeably often enough to be confused enough to ask these people.
>
> If anybody has a link that would refer to this issue in detail, I'd love to
> see it.
>
> Thanks.
>
> smackedass
>
>
> JesseTX wrote in message ...
>>From a test question in the Total Recall A+ study material:
>
>>"Where is the date and time stored when the computer is turned off?"
>>
>>You ready for this answer? In the CMOS battery! I am not joking,
>>that is what it says! I have heard of batteries having a "memory
>>effect", but that's the first time I have heard of a battery being
>>able to store data!
>
>
>
| |
|
| Your statement is true for Motherboard BIOS only but I like rest of what you
wrote.
BIOS in general describes all device drivers in a system.
Basic Input/Output System.
It's the interface between the Hardware and the OS. I would say that the
BIOS in a PC comes from 3 sources.
1. Motherboard ROM
2. Adapter Card ROM
3 Device Drivers loaded into RAM from disk.
AT
"Barry Watzman" <WatzmanNOSPAM@neo.rr.com> wrote in message
news:3F9D9259.5060206@neo.rr.com...
> The BIOS is executable CODE stored in a PROM [flash memory these days].
>
> CMOS is the DATA area for the bios, or at least part of it, classically
> stored in battery backed up CMOS memory, because one of the items stored
> in CMOS is the date and time, which is updated continuously even when
> the computer is off. Thus this CMOS memory and the "clock" that updates
> it are kept "alive" by the motherboard battery, even when the power is
> down. Note that "CMOS" is an extremely low power form of IC memory and
> is therefore well suited for battery backup.
>
> In additon to the date/time, among the other information that may be
> stored in CMOS memory are the password, hard drive paramters and all or
> some of the various chipset and motherboard setup parameters, as well as
> a "checksum" so that the system will know if the data becomes invalid
> for any reason.
>
> The key point here, again, is that the BIOS is executable CODE, while
> the contents of CMOS are DATA. And the reason that it's stored in CMOS
> battery backed up RAM is two-fold, first, the clock needs to be kept
> running and it's time (stored in CMOS memory) continually updated, even
> when the computer is off, and secondly, flash memory has a limited
> number of write cycles before it's destroyed, and while the number is
> large, if the time was stored in the BIOS' flash memory, the flash
> memory would be destroyed by the large number of writes. [Modern flash
> memory has a life expectancy of 100,000 to 1,000,000 write cycles, but
> there are 31 million seconds in a year]. However, since only the time
> is HIGHLY variable, the motherboard and BIOS vendor have quite a bit of
> flexibility as to which parameters are stored in the BIOS flash memory,
> and which are stored in CMOS memory.
>
>
>
> smackedass wrote:
>
> > Actually, when I've tried to pin some (informed?) people down as to what
the
> > difference between the CMOS and the BIOS is, some people have a hard
time
> > telling exactly what the difference is. Myself, I've seen the two terms
> > used interchangeably often enough to be confused enough to ask these
people.
> >
> > If anybody has a link that would refer to this issue in detail, I'd love
to
> > see it.
> >
> > Thanks.
> >
> > smackedass
> >
> >
> > JesseTX wrote in message ...
> >>From a test question in the Total Recall A+ study material:
> >
> >>"Where is the date and time stored when the computer is turned off?"
> >>
> >>You ready for this answer? In the CMOS battery! I am not joking,
> >>that is what it says! I have heard of batteries having a "memory
> >>effect", but that's the first time I have heard of a battery being
> >>able to store data!
> >
> >
> >
>
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