s i d e b a r

WILL YOUR COMPUTER GIVE YOU THE BOOT?

Some PC experts say some machines will refuse to boot up after Jan. 1, 2000. That’s because PCs maintain a calendar in their system BIOS, the internal memory that retains the computer’s basic operating information. If a bad date causes the BIOS to fail, the CPU will not be able to find its own hard drive or floppy drives to boot up.
The vast majority of PCs are built with Intel processors. You can find specific information for your equipment at Intel’s web site (www.intel.com/procs/support/year2000/index.com).
Other PCs include either Cyrix or AMD processors. Unfortunately, as of press time, Cyrix Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. web sites offer no specific year-2000 information for their products.
For software and hardware information, you can find help at IBM’s web site (www.ibm.com/IBM/Year2000).
Microsoft also offers year-2000 information at (www.microsoft.com/cio/year.asp).

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