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Change to 'Bios' will make for PCs that boot in seconds — Parallax Forums

Change to 'Bios' will make for PCs that boot in seconds

UnknownUnknown
edited 2010-10-03 21:28 in General Discussion
Change to 'Bios' will make for PCs that boot in seconds

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11430069

What took them so long?

Comments

  • Ron CzapalaRon Czapala Posts: 2,418
    edited 2010-10-02 14:52
    The BIOS process takes very little time - once the BIOS loads the disk boot sector and the operating system begins to load then things really slow down.

    Booting a simple OS like DOS from a hard drive (not a floppy) is very speedy - Windows, not so much... ;)

    System Boot Sequence
  • Martin_HMartin_H Posts: 4,051
    edited 2010-10-02 16:18
    While I agree OS boot time dwarfs BIOS boot. How fast the BIOS boots depends upon your hardware situation. For example if you use a USB keyboard, then PS/2 keyboard detection needs to timeout first. That can add about 15 seconds to the boot time depending upon BIOS version.

    Initially you might think that off legacy keyboard support would fix things. It will, but that can make the USB keyboard useless in the BIOS configuration menu. I've saved an old PS/2 keyboard for just such a situation, but it can be nasty if you don't have one.

    So fixing the legacy device mess is a good idea.
  • Peter KG6LSEPeter KG6LSE Posts: 1,383
    edited 2010-10-02 16:20
    Apple used open firmware for Years and now uses EFI ..

    ahead of the curve?
  • Ron CzapalaRon Czapala Posts: 2,418
    edited 2010-10-02 17:18
    Every bit helps but the title of that article is really misleading -

    "Change to 'Bios' will make for PCs that boot in seconds"
  • ElectricAyeElectricAye Posts: 4,561
    edited 2010-10-03 07:47
    My idea for a commercial:

    Actor 1: "Hi, I'm a Mac."
    (A long pause...)
    Actor 2: (Speaking three octaves lower, eyes rolled into back of head.) "Annnnd.... I'mmmmmm.........
    ....aaaaaaaaaaahhhh.......
    .......Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.........
    ......Ceeeeeeeeeeeuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh....."

    (Total elapsed commercial time: 20 minutes, 56 seconds but with a hard freeze and a pixelated BSOD at the finish.)
  • kwinnkwinn Posts: 8,697
    edited 2010-10-03 08:45
    A lot of interesting info at these links.

    I cannot help wondering why it has taken so long to address the boot time issue, and now that we have sd cards with 32 and 64 gig capacities why do we not have an sd slot on the motherboard for the operating system and major apps to load from.
  • Buck RogersBuck Rogers Posts: 2,190
    edited 2010-10-03 21:28
    Chuckz wrote: »
    Change to 'Bios' will make for PCs that boot in seconds

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11430069

    What took them so long?

    Hello!
    Nothing. And the article is largely wrong, given the fact that there's been an available open source method besides the methods that the OLTP systems wear.

    See http://www.coreboot.org for details.:smhair:
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