From Boot to Business in a Few Seconds

October 20, 2009 - 10:05 am

With improvements to storage technology and the impending launch of Windows 7, the time it takes for PCs to turn on is shrinking. PC manufacturers are going to great lengths to get you from power-on to log-on as quickly as possible.

The early morning routine for a computer user used to be a three step process – 1. Press the power button. 2. Go make a nice cuppa. 3. Get to work – This was more out of necessity than choice; computers used to take several minutes to whirr into life.

In recent years things have improved a vast amount. Aside from computers simply being faster, the way they start up is different now, aiming to do as much as possible in the background while you’re already getting started on your daily jobs (your duties including de-tagging embarrassing photos on Facebook and so forth).

Microsoft and PC manufacturers all want you to see less of this.

But things are set to get better still – we’re getting tantalisingly close to instant-on PCs. And we’re talking instant-on from a cold, hard power-off here, rather than standby or sleep mode.

Microsoft’s soon to be launched Windows 7 (more on that here at Remember Kingston soon!) streamlines the boot process further, getting times down to just a few seconds on speedy systems. This is helped by ultra fast SSD drives which are heaps quicker than clunky old hard disks.

Great stuff, but the one remaining bottleneck is beyond the control of Windows or the disk drive – it’s the BIOS, that lovely stream of 16-colour logos and text that scroll past for the first few seconds after power-on.

It’s a mystery as to why we’ve had to sit through the BIOS at every power-on all these years – it’s meaningless to just about all of us, after all! But finally the end is in sight. Manufacturers are trying out replacement technology called EFI (used already in Apple Macs) that can cut this process down to… wait for it (yes, we appreciate the irony)… less than 1 second. For those with a geeky streak in them, check out this video showing two laptops booting – one in 20 seconds and the other in under 10!

The good news, then, is that we don’t have to worry about boot times much longer. Modern PCs will soon boot “from cold” in just a few seconds. The bad news, however, is that we’ve got one less excuse to use for being a bit late getting started. Dammit, once computers are perfect we’re going to have to be more creative with our excuses!