This test checks to see what date your PC BIOS assumes is the next day after 31st December 1999.
Please note that this is not the same test as manually checking how your Operating System (DOS or Microsoft Windows for example) reacts to the day after December 31st 1999.
Nor is this the same as looking at your CMOS setup and performing a manual rollover from the CMOS date and time. (We strongly advise you not to attempt this !)
In many older PCs and a significant percentage of newer PCs we have seen various dates to be given as the day after December 31st 1999. If your PC does not show January 1st 2000, your BIOS has failed this test.
In some new Operating Systems, this failure is catered for, and the Operating System will allow you to use the PC normally even though the BIOS date is incorrect.
As you may have more than one operating system on your PC (dual boot mode) and as some programs actually get their date from the BIOS directly (i.e. not from the Operating System), we think that failing this test is a most serious BIOS failure.
If your PC fails this BIOS test, we recommend that you fix this problem before 31st December 1999. There are a number of options available for you in this regard, they are...
* Your hardware vendor may offer a service via which you can update the BIOS information in your machine. Unfortunately this option is typically not available with many older machines. It is also a functionality that has been relatively expensive to implement, and thus does not appear in many of the cheaper modern machines.
* If you are experiencing problems pursuing the first option, in many cases it is possible to utilize a software-based "fix" to address the BIOS issue. Greenwich Mean Time has supplied this functionality within this product for you to test in your environment. This will assist many users, except in the case of approximately 2% of machine configurations.
* If neither of the above options works for you, then your final option would be to purchase a hardware-based clock card intended to address the year 2000 BIOS issue. Unfortunately, the cost of these hardware solutions often exceeds the value of the computer you are trying to rescue, and serious consideration should be given to system replacement.
BEWARE
During our testing, we have found that some BIOS (particularly but not only AWARD BIOS 4.50G, AWARD BIOS 4.51G, AWARD BIOS 4.51PG, and some other AWARD BIOS dated 1994, 1995, and 1996) and HP Vectra XU BIOS version GG.06.03 behave very differently from other BIOS.
These BIOS may fail to rollover correctly either during POWER ON or POWER OFF testing, but in any such case so far tested, Check 2000 will correctly report the BIOS as passing or failing the BIOS Rollover test.
In some cases, Check 2000 will report a fail for the BIOS test, because the PC will fail to rollover correctly when powered on through midnight December 31st 1999. However, you will be unable to see this failure replicated using any manual tests without using a BIOS utility such as Tom Becker's viewcmos.exe (available from www.RighTime.com). In this case Check 2000 is certainly reporting a correct pass or fail reading.
If your PC fails this BIOS test, you may have a serious problem if you switch your PC off, or leave it on during the century rollover. In many cases this can be simply and quickly fixed using a BIOS fix as mentioned above. Please contact Greenwich Mean Time for details.
