Hi Bill,

Depends on the age of the machine, in my experience. Fairly modern systems
will probably be in a working condition, with sensible(ish) defaults set for
most options apart from date and time. IDE devices will probably be set to
auto detect, so hard drives, CDs etc should be found. But sensible(ish)
isn't the same as optimal. If the BIOS lets you adjust the CPU settings, for
eg, then it may well be that the default settings will be adequate to get
the machine to boot, but will be far from good.

On really old machines, you had to set pretty much all the options by hand,
including the hard disk parameters and interrupts etc. Even on newer
machines you may well lose any particular tweaks that have been made.

So I'd say yes - if the system is behaving reasonably well, it's always
worth spending a few minutes jotting down those settings. If it turns out
you don't need them then that's great. But if you do, those few minutes
might save hours of experimenting while you try to figure out what needs to
be changed. Been there, done that, wished I'd written it down before I
started:-)

That said, in a situation like the OP, where the clock is always wrong when
the system is powered up, I'd be tempted to think that other settings might
be equally corrupt and that the system is already using sensible(ish)
defaults for most things. That's just a guess, though - anyone have a
definitive answer to that? Either way, it doesn't hurt to err on the side of
caution and make a note of those settings!

Rob.

"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
So have you really had to write down and use those CMOS settings in
practice, or has the system been able to get it pretty much right on its
own, after booting up? (Just wondering - haven't been there yet). ??