If you search for a CMOS cleaner download, you will generally find two types of results:

The Verdict: There is no universal "magic app" that cleans CMOS. The safest and most effective way to do this is physically, on the hardware level.

Once you successfully clear the CMOS using the physical methods above, your motherboard reverts to factory defaults. Expect the following:

First, it is important to understand that "cleaning" the CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor) is a hardware process, not a digital one like clearing your browser cache.

The CMOS is a small amount of memory on your computer's motherboard that stores the BIOS settings (system time, boot order, hardware configurations). It is powered by a small coin-cell battery (CR2032).

If your BIOS becomes corrupted or you set an overclock that makes the system unstable, "cleaning" the CMOS resets the BIOS settings back to factory defaults.

These read CMOS data but cannot perform a hardware reset from within a crashed OS.

PC CMOS Cleaner is reportedly a utility tool described online as able to reset or clear CMOS/BIOS settings on Windows PCs. There are multiple similarly named executables and guides; many circulation points are user forums, small download sites, and torrent or archive repositories. The term also appears in discussions about malware or adware disguised as system tools.