How To CORRECTLY Clear Your CMOS 

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.

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!

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.

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. 🤣

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...😀

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.

You missed a fourth option: You can easily clear your CMOS by dunking your fully powered on PC in the bathtub.

Love the channel Greg! Thank you for all your great content

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.

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

this whole video, had me thinking of the Staples "Easy" button... love it.

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 :)

Pretty sure that user will be deleting their RU-vid account after they watch this. Greg always responds with class. One of my favorite channels to follow.

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!!

broooooo you're my hero man I followed you step by step and it work

UGH. This is one of the reasons why I cannot be a RU-vidr. 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.

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).

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?

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.

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).

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.

What type of motherboard is that? And if you can make a rig with it like old school PC game

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.

is contact cleaner (wd) good alternative for Isopropyl alcohol 99.9% it's hard to find here, or 70% iso will do? thanks

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.

Is there any power draw at all on the CMOS battery when you are plugged into AC and the power supply is on?

thank you so much for this video! the screwdriver trick got my pc back up and running!

Thank you, this help fixed my Bluetooth Driver problem!! ❤️❤️❤️

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?

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?

Cmos placement on that board is amazing :D

Thanks for doing this video.

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 !

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

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?

Oh my god thanks so much i spent so long trying to get this to work

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?

Do I have to remove the mother board or can I just shut down the power with it unplugged ?

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

It always amazes me to see people so confident in what they have Zero idea they're talking about!!! Rotfl!!!! Great vid Greg!!!!!

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.?

Thanks for clarifiying.

Will clearing the CMOS remove past firmware/bios updates that messed up the motherboard?

We learn at least one thing every day. Great vid. Greg hope your ok after Hurricane ian hit.

Keep up the good work

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.

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?

I'm more surprised to see a CMOS battery mounted on its side!

Can k have my gpu installed on the computer when i short the CMOS pins?

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

Great Info...Thank You !!!

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.

Full send on this disinformation Greg. 🔥

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.

It hurts my head you were put in the position to make this video but I love you for it

i got boot loop on me pc and c mas not hellping and taiking out ram stick not hellp wat to do?

u are so right greg using cmos battery to clear cmos

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.

@Greg Salazar , you did good there! The person making that comment must've been sleep deprived or was smoking something at the end of a tail pipe without a catalytic converter. We all need to learn from our mistakes. Hopefully that guy who clears his CMOS while the system is powered(and perhaps running as well) learns a thing or two.

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 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.

thanks so much for this instant sub

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.

Your battery explanation is very well said. Short sweet and to the point. Now I could be wrong but isn’t this why old game boy cartridges had batteries in them as well, to keep saved stuff on them??? Idk 🤷‍♂️ just curious

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?

Does the screwdriver need to have a magnetic tip?

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

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.

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.

Always have just popped it out for like 5- 10 seconds instead of minutes and it always works regardless of it being plugged in or not.

You face at 5:18 is freaking gold lmfao

Can you change the CMOS battery while powered on to prevent loss of BIOS settings? Thanks.

Day 34: woop woop new vid and new info lets gooo

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.

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 :/

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.

greg, hero we need but don't deserve

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?

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!

i have never been able to clear cmos with power on never worked always had to completely cut power off

What do you do if the battery is soldered onto the board

I have a rather peculiar scenario with my work PC. Sometimes the BIOS config might shit itself and the machine will give RAM errors although the memory is fine. Resetting it without power never fixed it for me but leaving it to run while the 3 PIN CMOS jumper were shorted on the CLEAR config, after 5 mins of running idle with those pins shorted it would boot fine when placed in the normal configuration. After that incident, i've never used just 1 method for clearing the CMOS of a motherboard and also kinda validates a teeny bit of message the other guy had posted.

Poor lad didn't understand the concept of a battery lmao

Thank you so much you have no idea how much you helped me I can't afford a new pc and this helped me fix mine.

I'll start out by saying that I always start out by holding the power button down like you said after the power cord is removed or the power supply switch is turned off, like you said. However; I have had weird situations twice in my life where one time on a really old 1990's motherboard I had to take the battery out for a week for the board to work again (probably something besides the cmos going on there), and most recently on an X570 board I had to take the battery out for an hour for the board to work again and I'm still using that board right now with no other issues ever. Consider that I've reset cmos thousands of times while working at a refurb shop and on my own stuff and these are the only 2 times this has happened.

Brand new at this and could not figure out how to take cmos battery out (I know super embarrassing). It’s just like the one in the video. Anyways thank you sir!!!

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

Thanks to you my bluetooth finaly works again after three entire months of not working as i could reinstall the corrupted drivers fsr

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.

U the man Greg!

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.

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.

Could this be the start of a new series, "Learning with Greg"?

Thank U man 😇 my motherboard doesn`t have battery so clear cmos is very helpful

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.

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!

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.

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.

Life saver