Motherboards and Boot Up Time

**shred444** · 06-15-2005, 07:46 AM

ive been using an intel board stolen from a compaq desktop to run my carputer. its a pent III 733mhz in flex-atx form factor.

the problem is that its running the compaq/intel bios version, and boot up time is a *****. its taking 60 seconds to boot up each time, and thats with all these mods:

changed bios to quick start up
disabled cdrom in bios and windows
disabled other ide ports
disabled ethernet
removed fonts
removed windows boot up screen
ran microsoft bootvis
dumbed down windows for lowest graphic intense setting
removed any startup apps.
and much more

i'de say 15 seconds is dedicated to just displaying COMPAQ on the screen before windows even loads.

then 15 seconds of a black screen

then the windows logo

then 10 seconds of black screen

then 10 seconds of the blue windows screen

then about 10 seconds until windows is usable.

I have tried to download a newer bios version from intel or compaq but the seem to want nothing to do with this mobo, since it was a rare edition for this type of computer.

what are my options?

if i were to get a new mobo, maybe mini-itx format... how can i ensure i get a fast boot up time?

how fast are your boot up times?

**dan__wright** · 06-15-2005, 08:01 AM

the compaq screen will be when its ckecking things on the mobo or doing a mem test, if youve disabled these i cant see why it still takes ages.

**shred444** · 06-15-2005, 08:15 AM

the bios are very rudimentary. they have very few settings to adjust. im assuming that the consumer who would have bought this computer when it was made, would never have needed these bios to begin with.

whats the deal with hibernation. ive been reading that people are hibernating instead of shutting down. doesnt hibernation still draw some power? how long can a battery last in hibernation. can the computer be totally unplugged? i dont think so?

**dan__wright** · 06-15-2005, 08:17 AM

depends on your battery but you should be able to last a few days in hibernate.

**stevieg** · 06-15-2005, 08:19 AM

I have a Epia MII12000 and have about 12 seconds boot up time, my Epia 800 wasn't much diffeent. That's the same kind of mods above (actually less), and disabling a bunch of services.

I use standby however to make my resume times faster for the car PC -this cuts it down to less than 4 seconds. Hibernate is of course another option.

**stevieg** · 06-15-2005, 08:28 AM

Originally Posted by dan__wright

depends on your battery but you should be able to last a few days in hibernate.

Mine lasts a week in standby, which uses more than hibernate.

**shred444** · 06-15-2005, 10:06 AM

wow a week is pretty good. can someone explain the differences between standby and hibernation?

**stevieg** · 06-15-2005, 10:15 AM

Originally Posted by shred444

wow a week is pretty good. can someone explain the differences between standby and hibernation?

Standby is suspending all parts of the system except for the RAM. The system draws power to keep the memory 'alive' and USB devices.

Hibernate copies the contents of RAM to the HDD, then turns the system power off. USB devices may still get power.

You can pull the plug out of a hibernated system, and fire it up a week later and it should resume. If you pull the plug on a machine in standby, it will not resume as standby mean's it's still 'on'.

PS: Usually I use the car every day, so the machine actually never shut down. I probably reboot it every few weeks due to me messing around with a setting somewhere.

**kevinbr100** · 06-15-2005, 10:17 AM

hibernation does not draw any power at all (than when the machine is powered off), it simply takes a snapshot of system memory, writes it to disk, and when the machine is restarted, it reloads everything back in to memory and tries to return applications to the same state.

standby keeps power to the system memory, shutsdown everything non essential, still draws small amount of power

**shred444** · 06-15-2005, 01:30 PM

wow thats great. i think i will try hibernation. i do want to make sure though that usb devices to not get power. i am running a usb touchscreen and gps off the usb ports and do not want them left on. anyone know for sure if usb gets turned off?