With flash storage being so inexpensive, why do computers still need coin batteries to preserve BIOS settings?

do they?

I thought the battery is mainly for the clock

mine seems to reset BIOS/EUFI settings when I have the mains off

o0

which would lend credence to the theory that they do

might be other reasons tho

my system is also, what, 8 years old at this point?

maybe the cost of flash then tipped the balance against it

That's how the 4+ year old Dell computers at my work behave. Maybe the newer ones work differently.

I had several batteries die on me within the last few months, and whenever there was a power outage, they lost all their settings.

It doesn't wipe the BIOS password though, so there is some amount of persistent storage available.

@Michael There's a jumper you can move on a jumper block to clear the settings. This is even on newer OptiPlex machines.

@bwDraco Yeah, that's what I would use to reset it if I forgot the admin password.

Even easier, especially for Dells... Why not use the method recommended in my blog?