Clearing CMOS for ram installation?

youcancallmeal

I know if your putting new ram into your system the cmos has to be cleared but what i was wondering is if you've got 512mb of ram installed and you want to put another 512mb of the same ram in do you have to clear the cmos then?

aidan_walsh

I've installed RAM in a number of computers and never had to clear the CMOS. Smack who ever told you that.

youcancallmeal

aidan_walsh wrote:

I've installed RAM in a number of computers and never had to clear the CMOS. Smack who ever told you that.

Well you may have been installing ram to a brand new system new booted before in which case the CMOS would not have to be clear.

Cant remember where I read this, I may be wrong altogether?

aidan_walsh

New RAM in new computers, and upgrades on computers up to three years old at the time, never did anything different (pop it in and boot up), never had a problem.

maidhc

I have put ram into many computers (none of them brand new systems). Never cleared any CMOS, ram always worked.

TerrorFirmer

Basically thats just a load of crap.

I frequently tinker around with old and new pcs and never once have I had an issue with RAM after just putting it in and powering up

commited

You dont need to.

Capt'n Midnight

youcancallme>al wrote:

I know if your putting new ram into your system the cmos has to be cleared but what i was wondering is if you've got 512mb of ram installed and you want to put another 512mb of the same ram in do you have to clear the cmos then?

Never heard of that either.
On many older PC's you have to go into the BIOS after the ram is installed and then save the new settings. Can't ever remember having to tell a PC how much memeory it would have before installing memeory - and I've put 256KB DIL chips ( off a video card / canabilised PC ) into a XT that only had 256KB in before.

art

Some Dell systems (that I know of) have a warning message - "the amount of system memory has changed ... blah blah", and I think I saw similar on some older systems but, basically, as we've all said, no, you don't need to clear CMOS. Just bang the extra memory in, if you get a message directing you to BIOS setup you can say no and just continue. I change systems in work a lot and regularly alter RAM amounts, switching sticks from one PC to another etc, without problems at all.

_CreeD_

The first batch of Gateway MMX motherboards had an issue where the BIOS would fk up the DIMMs register, so you did have to clear the CMOS to reset it after an install. But thats about it.

the_syco

If you get CL3 memory, it'll work. Cl2 memory is more picky, and you may have to reset/change certain settings for it to work.

youcancallmeal

Well I guess I did have the wrong idea then.
My system is absolutely f*cked at the moment and I was swapping ram around and clearing the cmos every time.