skitters wrote:

I was browsing amibay and found this description of a 386/40 -- […]
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I was browsing amibay and found this description of a 386/40 --

Battery has been removed but somehow the system remembers its settings.

How would a 386 retain its settings without a battery?
Do some 386 computers use NVRAM for the BIOS settings?

NVRAM (Non-Volatile RAM) is usually non-volatile because it has a battery or other power source. I don't know of any machines of this era that use flash for BIOS settings. They pretty much all use the memory in the RTC chip (which also needs to be powered in order to keep time correctly). The fact that the battery has been removed means that it does normally have a battery, so there would be no need to do anything complicated or weird to keep BIOS settings and time.

The most likely explanation is that it uses standby power to keep the BIOS settings when there is no battery, and the seller just didn't bother unplugging it. Or maybe there was enough power in the PSU capacitors to keep the settings for a while with no battery.

I can relate to that. I have an old Unisys 286 based machine, and before I replaced the BIOS battery, it would hold the information for about 1 hour. That said. An AT system does not have standby power. When you turn it off, you shut down the power source completely. Most likely power left in the caps within the psu, to power the BIOS, in order to keep the settings. It will however reset after a while.

Wow!!!!! What happened to that massive wall of Russian text? I've never seen a forum post that big before. I did a refresh to do a translation and it was removed. Just curious to what was in that massive wall of text.

At least this sheds some light on why one of my motherboards keeps settings despite the fact I see no battery. Err... I think it was the Asus Maximus Formula, which doesn't appear to have a battery. Has some nonstandard features, though. I guess if you were going to overclock a lot, you'd be changing settings, constantly anyway.