On Sat, 20 Sep 2008 13:55:44 -0500, "VanguardLH"
<V@nguard.LH> wrote:

>No advance warning. On a reboot, the CMOS table (what the battery is
>keeping alive) is cleared and the factory defaults load from EEPROM.
>However, rare few users monitor for changes in their BIOS settings after
>a reboot.
>
>Some [old] motherboards will not boot when the battery is low/dead.
>Most motherboards will boot with a dead battery but you get the EEPROM
>(factory) defaults on a cold start.
>


Old may not have much to do with it, the really old ones
tended to at least POST w/o battery while the more recent (5
year old or less) seem more likely not to.