I'll be putting a new system together soon for a friend and I noticed that the mainboard he selected (Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R) has one of those infamous 'Clear CMOS' buttons on the back, next to the USB ports in the I/O section. I'm still coming up empty when it comes to figuring out a purpose to this button. It seems to me that this button makes it really easy to accidentally reset the CMOS configuration while moving the system. I like the idea of resetting the CMOS being hard and requiring opening up the case and messing around inside. Beyond this it wastes precious space in the I/O section. I have seen these buttons on other parts of some mainboards as well, including a 'power' button. How hard is it to grab a screwdriver and short out the power pins of the front panel connector? How hard is it to move a jumper one pin? Now, this mainboard also has lots of indicator LEDs, which are such a rough indication you would probably know it was overheating or suffering overvoltage even without them. Why is all the precious mainboard real estate and effort being wasted on these gadgets?
In no way could a useful tool like the clear CMOS button be considered "useless" or "a waste of space". You really have to not like quicker and more efficient ways of doing things to complain about clear CMOS and onboard power buttons when they're added to help out the more extreme overclocking side of the market - It has come in handy when testing my motherboard outside the case or when wanting to start fresh on default settings.
Very true with it being a useful addition but why on the IO panel? It is just begging to be caught while you are fumbling around trying to plug in a lead. Having it in an easily access-able place on the face of the board itself would make far more sense
My own mobo has a power button and a reset button on the bottom right-ish and I love them. Very useful when first building to test all of the parts out of the case, and very useful when I accidentally plugged my power switch into the wrong pins after switching cases. Thought I'd broken something in the process until I remembered to try the mobo button. Unfortunately, there is no clear CMOS button. I've only had to clear it once, but fiddling around finding the right pins then getting the tiny little jumper and moving it into place then moving it back was a pain. A small button similar to the small little power/reset buttons on this board would actually take less space than pins. Certainly worth the real estate it consumes. Though I have to agree about the rear I/O panel being poor placement, reaching to the back is almost as hard as taking the side panel off somtimes.
A button on the case requires cooperation from a third party. Anything with a cord that plugs into the back of the computer can be lost, is not hard to make look bad. The IO shield is shipped with the motherboard, the button is relatively inexpensive, it requires no outside cooperation, and the appearance of the final result is not terrible. It is the best of the available compromises.
I have an old case power switch I connect to the cmos reset. Onlly due to the fact that the water loopand wc'd sli'd cards makes getting the jumper a swine. Onc I'm happy with the OC and setup, just yank the bugger off. I had a MSI board with a cmos reset on the backplane, didn't work great sometimes didn't work at all, but it was a Nfroce 650i so OCing was awful (quad)
i have a clear cmos button on my I/O and i find it great so you don't have to open up your system and get a screw driver to try and reach to press it, and sometimes he cmos button is under the heatsink or under you graphis card so you have to take half your system apart just to clear cmos and i have never acidently pressed it because it is embeded quite deep so it dosen't stick out
My cmos pins lie underneath the HS on my gfx card so to reset cmos i have to completely remove the gfx card then reset cmos and replace the gfx. If i were to have a button to do it easily without hassle it would be a godsend when establishing a stable overclock.
Dont most motherboards revert to default settings anyway if an OC fails now? The clear cmos button is handy, but id rather have it inside than on the rear I/O, knowing me id hit whilst fumbling with the other inputs
Why not? And personally, i'd rather push a button than go poking around with a screwdriver when the PC is turned on.
Don't know about the gigabyte board, but on my asus board you can set a jumper to disable the clr cmos button on the back i/o plate. Don't need to worry about accidently pressing it then.
I have one of those 'clear CMOS' buttons and it has saved my system without having to take things apart a few times. I love it and wish all motherboards came with it!
That'd help, yes. Somewhat like the lock feature on scanners which is a godsend when moving it around a lot. I can definitely see myself nuke the carefully crafted BIOS configuration while fumbling around with the system otherwise as I tend to insert connectors by touch a lot. I'd hate to suddenly hear a 'click' while plugging in that USB cable and realize what just happened
