What frequency do BIOS's run at ?

Hope this is not a repost,did a search but came up empty

My question ;
Does the BIOS run at the frequency of the CPU installed or does it run at it's own frequency ?
The reason i am asking is because my Celery600@1200 suddenly became very slow to boot (BIOS screen only),It runs fine once it gets into WinBlows.
I tried dumping the BIOS to no avail.
The average time before this happenend was 12 seconds.Now it takes two minutes to get in and out of the BIOS screen.
It has no trouble detecting my hard drives and CD roms,it is just real slow posting it on the screen.
(It writes one letter or number at a time,about 1 to 2 seconds per digit)

Any ideas ?

 

[Yomama21]

Does it take longer detecting all devices or just the first of them? It sounds like there is a problem with the mobo or one of those devices.

 

It's not just the detection,even the energy star savings logo pops up one digit at a time.
Everything on the boot up screen,including the cpu speed and BIOS identifier # comes up real slow,like someone is typing it up on the monitor,that slow.
It's as if the BIOS is running at 25 mghz

 

[GoodRevrnd]

Maybe the BIOS gnomes are getting old and tired? Try feeding them? If it is the BIOS, you can always try getting a new chip from the manufacturer if they don't charge too much, or see if someone has a dead version of your board and buy one off them. Very strange.

EDIT: What about a CMOS virus? Do those still exist?

 

EDIT: What about a CMOS virus? Do those still exist?

I wish I knew.

 

[klah]

The bios is just software. The EEPROM (flash memory) it is stored on is pretty fast (100mhz+) on newer boards.
On older boards the ROM is really slow, so the bios was copied over to RAM when the system was started. There may be a setting in the bios for "bios shadowing" or something similar. If this is disabled, it will try to run the bios from the ROM and could be causing this slowdown. What is the Make/Model of your motherboard?

If there are any CMOS virii, you can find them here: www.sarc.com

 

[Sunner]

Tried loading the default settings for yer BIOS?

Or reflashing it?

What mobo is it anyways?

 

[CTho9305]

Try wiggling your IDE cables. (Or unplug/replug)