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Reply With QuoteWell for the drives, just set the details in the BIOS rather than auto-detect, should shave some of the boot times
Hi all,
I have been messing around for ages to reduce my boot time, nliting, bootvis, editing the BIOS. I have speeded it up somewhat but the damn BIOS must take 30 secs to get through b4 windows even starts! Another 30secs to boot windows and then for the front end to load. I reckon a good figure for me is 1min 30secs to music. This is not fast enough for me, its really frustrating just waiting!
I have an old mobo though, with an AMB k6 450MHZ (1998)
So, I was searching for some new motherboards with fast BIOS and came accross this Intel one. Was wondering if anyone has any experience with intel rapid BIOS?
http://www.shopcol.com/intelboxd845pt.html
Or, are there any other mobo's out there that have a particularly fast BIOS for whipping straight through to getting on with the job of loading in all those windows...
The way I see it, the BIOS goes through a sequence trying to detect different bits of hardware. It does this by looking and timing out if it cannot find it. This is particularly laborious but required if it is to support the millions of pieces of hardware out there. It would be ideal if we could get rid of the stuff it is looking for that we would never use. Even with my new ASUS p4E mobo it sits there for 10secs looking for a Hitachi drive. Its so slow, there is a fix for it but it will not let me get in to reflash the BIOS (another ASUS fault) so now I use standby all the time.
opinions please?
Nick
Well for the drives, just set the details in the BIOS rather than auto-detect, should shave some of the boot times
and dont forget to do the same in Windows device manager (IDE controller properties) as WinXP autodetects all IDE devices again otherwise. Anyway, 30 secs. POST time is definitelly freaky. Normally, even buggy BIOSes can achive POST times under 10 secs.
I'm going to agree here, defiantly freaky to have such a long POST, however not unheard of for a 450MHZ machine. Typically those older machines take a bit to get out of BIOS. Check to see if you can shut off the memmory check during POST. If you've already done that sorry I didn't read all the way through your first post.Originally Posted by LagunaICE
Also I'd say any new mobo has fast POST times, if your looking for a new MOBO then I'd consider a VIA Epia MII, 2-4 second POST and an excellant board for this hobby. Unfortunitly if you dont have the right form factor case then this board will probably cost you more than you're barganing for.
Progress [I will seriously never be done!]
Via EPIA MII
512MB RAM
OEM GPS (embedded)
nLite WinXP pro on
1GB Extreme III CF card
Carnetix 1260 startup/ DC-DC regulator
Software: Still, re-Writing my existing front end in .Net
I've got an Intel Micro-ATX board with AMIBIOS8. It's got the "rapid BIOS" feature, but I don't think it's that much different than any other BIOS in the fact that it's best to manually configure everything and disable stuff you don't need. AMIBIOS definitely has a lot more features than Award does (VIA uses Award).
Thanks for the replies guys.
The p4 Asus board is my desktop machine so Im not too bothered about sorting the boot time but was just using it as an example. It uses a SATA HD and I have entered the details in the BIOS and disabled everything else, but there is a bug which hangs it looking for a specific drive. Have not tried the thing in windows itself yet...
As for the carpc, I have edited the BIOS and removed everything it does not need but it still takes ages. Maybe I just need to go a bit more up to date. Like everyone says, modern boards should post much quicked than that.
I'll keep you 'posted'....
cheers
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