Finally someone has worked out that we dont like waiting ages for an OS to boot

[badass]

http://blog.laptopmag.com/phoenixs-1...s-really-works

At last someone has worked out to make a BIOS for the PC that doesn't suck. Oh well, only 20 years behind Amiga hardware and firmware.

[Jay]

how the hell do you get into the BIOS then?

[Funkstar]

hold a key as you boot up?

I've had to do that on systems before, I think they were Compaq.

[marshalex]

seems like a great idea to me. wonder how many vendors will offer the feature as bios updates to existing mobos

[ABCx86]

This looks hopeful, I wonder if it's just developed for notebooks?

I find waiting for POST to finish very irksome.

[Kumagoro]

I just wonder why the hell has it taken so long for them to get around to actually doing this.
Its about time.

To be able to get into the bios they should just make it so that you hold del or any other key
down before you power on.

[Funkstar]

This looks hopeful, I wonder if it's just developed for notebooks?

I find waiting for POST to finish very irksome.

No reason it couldn't be used in other systems, although I would expect it to make far less impact on a desktop that could have a very complex configuration. laptops and other portables have a pretty fixed configuration so the BIOS can be tuned more easily.

[llololloy]

At last someone has worked out to make a BIOS for the PC that doesn't suck. Oh well, only 20 years behind Amiga hardware and firmware.

I honestly can't remember how long my a1200 took to boot to workbench using the hard drive, was it really that quick? Can't recall being shocked how long my mates PCs (or my own 1st PC) took to boot at the time, though maybe that was because of experience with the RM Nimbus 286s we had at school around then.

[marshalex]

I honestly can't remember how long my a1200 took to boot to workbench using the hard drive, was it really that quick? Can't recall being shocked how long my mates PCs (or my own 1st PC) took to boot at the time, though maybe that was because of experience with the RM Nimbus 286s we had at school around then.

ah the RM Numbus, i remember them well along with the stupidly noisey ribbon printers at primary school!

[synaesthesia]

That article is dire - it's pitching UEFI (or even EFI) as something new. Far from it, and far from being a Mactard, EFi's been around for ages in Apple hardware and MSI hasn't long released motherboards using EFI technology. Same goes for so-called UEFI (aka EFI GTi, or add any marketing nomenclature you may wish to use)
Why hasn't it been used until recently? Same reason we've been stuck with 32bit-ness unnecessarily for the last 10 years, money and people being worried about changing something that can make such a difference.

And no, EFI isn't a BIOS, just like a Ford Focus isn't a Model T Ford. It's a replacement. It does the same thing, but in a very different way.


Oh, and RM are still around Guess who has to work with them all day

[llololloy]

Primary school? I'm old. This was high school. Don't think we even had any 486s when I left.
And dot matrix printers are still in use in a lot of payroll depts. In fact, have you seen how much they cost? Remember seeing one listed on an etailer a while ago, it was hundreds of pounds.

[badass]

I honestly can't remember how long my a1200 took to boot to workbench using the hard drive, was it really that quick? Can't recall being shocked how long my mates PCs (or my own 1st PC) took to boot at the time, though maybe that was because of experience with the RM Nimbus 286s we had at school around then.

Mine took 6 seconds from pressing the power switch to workbench being completely loaded.
No PC has ever touched that. However that Windows 7 demonstration on that laptop with the SSD was pretty impressive.

[Xenshin]

That is very impressive indeed, will be interesting to see this on a desktop PC.

[arthurleung]

I never understand... I put my laptop into sleep and it only take 1.5 seconds from pulling the screen up to me typing the password in. And 3 seconds to desktop.

Why can't they make desktop that have the option to boots up automatically, go to sleep, then the user can have instant on. PC on sleep only takes a couple watts max, which can be compensated by simply turning the heater down a very very tiny fraction.

[Funkstar]

If I replaced the 160GB drive in my Netbook with a good SSD, I'm pretty sure the think that would slow down a W7 restore from disk would be the Lenovo splash screen and BIOS initialisation. It's pretty quick as it is actually, much faster than any desktop, and my Asus laptop. But with that setup and a new this technology, I guess I could restore W7 in about 2 seconds.

[Ulti]

Wow, that really was fast.

I hate how my pc sometimes get stuck for around 5 second on the XP loading bar. (Not in the W7 rev yet xD) But then again, doesn't take that long to turn on my pc. (I don't have SSDs and everything either xD)