Is your Hardware Y2K compliant?

    With all the fury about checking and upgrading operating systems and applications to be year 2000 ready, it's easy to not look "in the box".

    Some hardware is affected, specifically in the BIOS and clock chips that reside on your motherboard. So, now's a good time to check up on your PC manufacturer's fore- or hind-sight.

    Listed at the bottom of the right hand column, you'll find Y2K home page's for major PC manufacturers. When you go surfing, make sure you have your PC's model number and BIOS version number close at hand. Should you wish to further document compliance and receive certification, there are utilities available. One is from the National Software Testing Laboratories (NSTL) called YMARK2000. It verifies the compatibility of your real-time clock (RTC), the progression of the clock from December 31, 1999 to January 1, 2000, and support for leap years through 2009. If you'd like to take the test, go to www.nstl.com/html/y2k_faq.html.

    If your hardware fails the test, you'll need to update your BIOS, reset the system clock and run a TSR (a terminate-and-stay resident program to bring older computers into compliance). Unfortunately, a TSR is not 100 percent effective because it loads after the operating system and can be bypassed or removed.

    As a last resort, or maybe it's just time anyway, bite the bullet and buy new PCs. Either way, don't overlook what's in the box after (probably) spending big bucks getting everything else compliant for the new millennium.