Everyone knows that a computer can keep track of time; even after its completely lost power... the question here is how. Does anyone really think about how a computer is capable of keeping track of time? I mean if it’s keeping track of the time it was shut off, how does it know how many minutes, hours, or even days... to ADD to that time, in order to keep the time correct? Now we are talking a computer that does not have the ability to keep itself up to date on the internet, because it’s pretty obvious that at least Windows... keeps track of the time, but downloading it from various sources on the internet, when it’s available. Now the basics would have to be; it uses a magnet, but if this is true... how does the magnet gain the capability to still control the time or at least detect how long the PC has been off, so it can re-add those missed hours.
With that said, how long would you need to keep a computer off, before it eventually lost track of the time, & had to be reset? Would it even reach this period?
Ah thats an easy one. I'd love to know how my PowerBook can automatically turn itself on under the Power config panel. You can set times when you want it to wake up or shut down under the Scheduler. And it can automatically boot itself up after a power failure - if the battery is disconnected i suppose. wonder how all that works...
Probably the same- info contained in the CMOS battery, once a ceratin time is reached then it activates the main power. Loads of devices have clocks and alarms that still work when the device is off, like mp3 players and stuff.
No information is stored in the CMOS battery. It's a battery. It doesn't even have anything to do with the CMOS anymore, it just supplies power to the RTC circuit.
Sorry, the CMOS battery powers the small amount of ram neede to store the bios settings for the motherboard, thats how it remembers the bios settings when you turn it off.