Flash memory in motherboards?

So... when can we expect motherboards to use Flash memory (instead of battery-powered NVRAM) to store BIOS settings for our motherboards?

Those coin lithium batteries are... old-fashioned.

Even the newer Asus boards seem to have a lithium battery for storing BIOS settings...

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Michael

Reply to
mrdarrett
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That would be a waste of money (something MB manufactuers are loathe to do). The battery is needed anyway for the RTC. Keeping an additional chunk of RAM alive is virtually free. What do you suggest, an expensive double-layer capacitor? Flash would also be less approprate than EEPROM technology.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

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"it\'s the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
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Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

I thought EEPROM was more expensive than Flash. Oh well... my information must be out of date.

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Thanks for the reminder re: the RTC...

Reply to
mrdarrett

Not out of date. It *is* cheaper for *large* memory sizes, but...

1] In your reference above, see the "sector erase" issue with flash. EEPROM can be changed one byte at a time. 2] The amount of memory required for BIOS *settings* (as opposed to the BIOS *program*) is quite small. Early ones were 64 bytes with the first 16 used for the RTC. Newer ones are probably several times that size, but still tiny compared to even a small flash memory. The smallest flash memory out of the 2200+ different types that Digikey carries is 256K bits (there's one shown erroneously as 1K, but it's actually 1M). They go up to a rather staggering 8G bits. EEPROMs, OTOH, start at 128 bits (16 bytes) and go up to about 1M bits. So, not only do you have the sector erase issue, but most of the memory would be wasted.

Of course some settings *are* stored in flash, in a sense, since the factory default settings are part of the BIOS program, which is generally stored in flash these days. One could write a BIOS to store the settings in the large program flash, if it has the ability to boostrap, but that could result in a dead motherboard and an angry customer if the power failed or a crash occured during the routine writing of values, so I think most engineers will not be overly eager to invite that kind of problem to the door. Even if it happens only rarely, it's an extremely serious problem to the user.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

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"it\'s the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
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Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

Not to mention that you would lose the 'discharge CMOS' option with a jumper ! An invaluable aid.

Graham

Reply to
Pooh Bear

One could argue that even the RTC is almost not needed in most desktop PCs now, they could get the time direct off the Net. Then you do have some savings - no pesky battery, and no CMOS ram.

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Adrian Jansen           adrianjansen at internode dot on dot net
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Reply to
Adrian Jansen

You're assuming everyone's connected to the 'net' !

Graham

Reply to
Pooh Bear

I expect functionally PC-like thingies (perhaps thin clients on wireless mesh networks) may well go that way.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

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Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

As if anyone cares about wasted memory in the PC world.

--DF

Reply to
Deefoo

I have not noticed any video cards which use 1G of memory where a mere

64M would do.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

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"it\'s the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
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Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

And you think that all those 64M bytes are being used? Hardware guys put on enough memory so software guys have plenty to waste.

--DF

Reply to
Deefoo

If you object to the coin cell, remove it and wire in a series pair of AA cells (assuming the coin is 3v, of course). The last time I did this mod was in 1999, to an IBM PC-AT. BIOS was still fine yesterday when I used that machine to assemble some MC68705 code.

-- Michael

Reply to
Michael

Agreed. Heartily! That breed of assumption is too common, causes no end of frustration/problems. Of the half dozen PC's I use, only one ever connects to the web.

--
Michael
Reply to
Michael

64MB isn't much these days either. Even this laptop has 128MB.
--
  Keith
Reply to
Keith

1999,

I might just do something along those lines.

My NEC 486 laptop's lithium battery's shot, and the battery in my Pentium II-366 MHz laptop is starting to go on the fritz...

On a positive note, though, I finally got my PII laptop to remote-control my main desktop machine last night (using vnc... that Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection didn't work for me)

- Another Michael ;-)

Reply to
mrdarrett
[snip]

If you're running Mac OS X or Windows Vista then you probably are using a good chunk of it.

Tim

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Reply to
Tim Auton

Say it isn't so! When you run Unreal Tournament 2004 or Quake 4, that GB of video ram can come in handy!

Reply to
mrdarrett

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