When in the context of computing CMOS refers to a chip that stores information about your PC including the time, date and configuration data, this technology is used due to the low power consumption.

The CMOS device is backed up by a battery to retain the information when the system is switched off.

The information (typically 64 Bytes) in the CMOS device is accessed by the BIOS when the machine is booted up (turned on), the CMOS settings (information) can be changed by the user by the way of a setup program usually accessed with a key sequence when the machine is first booted.

Different systems use different key sequences to access the CMOS settings (BIOS settings), you can find out the key sequence for your particular system from either the manual that came with your machine or your motherboard manual.

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