[SOLVED] PC Technician took out CMOS battery and hit the reset CMOS button WHILE PC WAS SWITCHED ON

[OUTBURSTPAL]

What are you guys’s thoughts on this?

today I had a PC technician in to help me diagnose a problem, and I nearly fainted when I saw what he did. HE TOOK OUT THE CMOS BATTERY AND HIT RESET CMOS BUTTON WHILE THE FREAKING THING WAS SWITCHED ON!! (Not booted into OS). What would you do in this situation? I almost cussed him out but refrained as I didn’t want to belittle him (imagine a customer telling you you’re doing your job wrong). If I told the company he works for about this, what would they do? Luckily it didn’t damage the board, but I’m honestly surprised it didn’t as he did it multiple times. What a psycho

 

[Hellfire13]

Very unsafe practice, but it is more common between technicians than you think. PC repair is mostly a tedious job and the repetitive srartup/shutdown cycles can be boring and time consuming at times while running diagnostics, and these guys are always short on time. Although unsafe, such practices do not always brick the PC luckily, and they are aware of this probability. Hence the gamble to save time.

 

[drea.drechsler]

I'd agree it's not a good practice but mainly because batteries can flip out of the holder when removed. If not caught, or otherwise fumbled on removal, it could land on the motherboard and short out something vital. And shorting pins in an unfamiliar board can be risky too: thinking you got the CMOS reset pair but getting a fan header or RGB header while it's powered is going to make the day a lot more exciting for even the most bored of techs.

As far as resetting CMOS by shorting the pins goes: the CMOS memory is normally powered by the battery even when power is off so doing the same with power on would be no different. In either situation maximum current draw is limited by a resistor that's why it's OK to do.

At least you were there watching so if the tech did damage your board you'd be able to press the issue with conviction and get a replacement.

 

[CountMike]

Unsafe but for different reasons. Proper procedure is to shut power right of and wait or force capacitors to discharge. Taking battery out while only plugged in or running is not going to reset CMOS because CMOS is still powered by MB and PSU. If you do it so there's no short, it wouldn't even restart.
Clearing CMOS while under power or running may cause different effects depending on BIOS type. In some instances it just turns battery off while in others also forces CMOS reset and will also restart MB.
In this case, taking battery out was not necessary as CMOS was till powered. With older MBs you could even take out and swap whole BIOS chip while everything is still running as CMOS was on separate chip and everything was running from CMOS. That was one of ways to reprogram blank BIOS chip.