Clearing CMOS and using F11 to reset defaults
The system BIOS on HP Netservers can be accessed in the advanced mode through F11 instead of F2 during POST, or by pressing Ctrl-A while entering the ECU (EISA Configuration Utility).
In the Advanced Setup, there is an option to reset BIOS defaults. This is useful for getting rid of questionable BIOS settings, but is not the same as a "Clear CMOS" from the system switches on the system board. The major difference is in the CMOS data.
The BIOS system consists of two portions. There is the BIOS EPROM and the CMOS. The BIOS EPROM is static and does not change unless flashed.
The CMOS is volatile RAM, kept alive by a CMOS battery. CMOS data is initially loaded from the BIOS, then held active until changed.
Resetting defaults causes CMOS to pull all the setting information from BIOS and set them appropriately.
Clearing CMOS causes the CMOS chip to clear it is entire contents and refresh them all from the BIOS chip.
This means that clearing CMOS causes the entire BIOS contents to be re-loaded from the static memory of the BIOS EPROM, and will remove CMOS corruption as well as restore the default settings.
Details
Affected products
HP Netserver E 200
HP Netserver E 800
HP Netserver LC 2000/LC 2000r
HP Netserver LC 2000 u3/LC 2000r u3
HP Netserver LH 3000/LH 3000r
HP Netserver LH 3000 u3/LH 3000r u3
HP Netserver LH 6000/LH 6000r
HP Netserver LH 6000 u3/LH 6000r u3
HP Netserver LP 1000r
HP Netserver LP 1000r[1.13/1.26/1.40GHz]
HP Netserver LP 2000r
HP Netserver LP 2000r[1.13/1.26/1.40GHz]
HP Netserver LPr
HP Netserver LT 6000r
HP Netserver LT 6000r u3
HP Netserver LXr 8500
HP Server tc2100
HP Server tc2110
HP Server tc3100
HP Server tc4100
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