You do not ALWAYS have to clear via battery. If no problems (like above occur) then on some boards it will boot to windows (after a quick bios tour). Most times, it will boot up and state "bios config has changed, press blah to enter bios" because it needs to redetect the hardware. Not saying pulling CMOS is a bad idea, its just not ABSOLUTLEY necessary. Once BIOS polls the hardware and compares it with what is in the CMOS it will continue to pass the boot strap to the HDD and o/s.