Quartz is a type of crystal used in watches, computers, and other devices to keep time. The quartz crystal vibrates or ticks an exact 60 seconds per minute when electricity is applied to it. The picture shows an example of a type of crystal you’ll find in your computer. This example is of a 24.576 MHz crystal on a computer sound card.

Depending on the quality of the quartz crystal and other factors, the quartz crystal may not properly tick exactly 60 seconds each minute, causing a computer to not keep the proper time.

CMOS, Motherboard terms

  • How to replace the CMOS battery.
  • Motherboard help and support.