Thread: Win8 with UEFI MB's Boot times?

Well, it seems that this system may boot even faster than 12 or so seconds. I found out that Win8 installed in the older MBR mode and not the newer GPT partition(s) install which is part of the EFI interface. Opinions vary as to the desirability and boot speed increases of a GPT boot but now that I have found out how to get it to install in UEFI mode I’ll give it a go. Also have an SSD on the way with R/W speeds of 520 to 550 MB/s. This is double the current SATAII drives I’m using, although the Car-PC already has one of these faster SSD installed. I’m hoping for a second or so gain in boot speed alone with the faster SSD.

Another reason for using this Mini ITX motherboard in my Home PC is to test the stability of the FE SW, hardware and Vehicle interface and utility SW on this system before upgrading the CAR-PC (if at all). If the cold boot times are around 10 seconds or so and remain constant then I can forget about Sleep and Hibernate. Meaning Hibernate as it is now, Win8 fast boot is a much modified, smaller and faster version of Hibernate. Dropping Sleep could make for a simpler installation, at least in my case anyway.

BTW I see a lot of hate directed towards switching between the Desktop and Metro Start screens. Once I removed the metro apps I don’t use and moved the remaining to the right of screen, I found that by placing my most used program shortcuts here is actually better then the old Start menu and shortcuts cluttering the desktop. One push of the window key flips between the two, so I’m actually starting to like what you can do with it.

Hi Mickz I just bought that same board on Monday. It's a great board and I love the performance all around. I'm running the i5-3570 non k model. 8gig ram 120 vertex 3. I went a different route with OS. Server 2003 enterprise 32bit getting 7-8 secs to desktop. This board does not need the /pae switch in windows and see's all ram. Still playing around with it as well as watching your post. SNO

Hi SNO, I assume the boot time is from a Cold start including Post. If so that indicates I may see more than just a second shaved from the boot time after I install the faster SSD. Should be here tomorrow, Ram arrives today. My last 3 mini-ATX boards have been Gigabyte, including the one in the Car-PC - really great build quality.

Had a problem with USB3 reverting to USB2 after Win8 fast boot (most likely Hibernate as well), no help on line or from Gigabyte on this but found if I set xHCI mode to Enabled instead of the default Auto everything worked perfectly, I think the correct setting for mine should be Smart-Auto. just to busy to try it at the moment. Mike.

Correct from push of power button to desktop 7-8 secs. The usb3 is mostly software control as without the correct drivers thats one part that will not work in server 2k3. I am sure its really geared to win7 but they are slowly posting win8 drivers on their site. I am quite happy with performance of my current carputer using a msi im-gm45 w/q9100, but really this board is almost a third of the price. I paid 109.99 for the z77n-wifi and 249.99 for the im-gm45. SNO

Drivers are perfect, BIOS routes the USB3 ports to xHCI or EHCI for Pre OS access to USB3 and changes with last previous boot steering, MB and OS support, seeing how this would affect USB3 initialisation indicates that I should have used Smart Auto. Page 47 of the Bios setup sort of glosses over this. Works perfectly now and latest W8 drivers from site are also installed. Mike.

BTW, now I can't wait to try it with the faster SSD, thanks for confirming those Boot times.

FYI here is a link that has boot times from power on to Desktop. overclock.net - post-your-boot-times

Lots of MB and OS's including UEFI and BIOS and mostly SSD. I guess I should be happy with my 12 seconds for a fully loaded system (SW) and multiple drives and USB devices plugged in. (Stopwatch timed)

Going from a SATAII to a SATA3-6GB drive made no difference to Windows Load time, so I'm hitting a wall somewhere and SSD read speed is not the limiting factor at the moment.

Now I'm a little surprised, not because of the read throughput between the two drives, 260MB/s versus 540MB/s but because of the read difference at 4K, the SATA 6GB drive is around 3 times as fast down there. (EDIT NO it's NOT) depends on the Test Program, difference at 4K is only small) so the limitation is EDIT(not) the SSD.

Win8 loads in around 4 seconds from the first sight of the small blue Win8 logo. There is no way to tell exactly when the Bios hands over as there is no BIOS screen at all and it's 8 seconds from Power switch press to seeing this Logo. So I'm still at around 12 seconds cold boot.

Reinstalling the OS from a UEFI detected CDROM resulted in a GPT partition and UEFI boot installation, confirmed by DIskPart and Win8 also lists the Drive as UEFI and of course it has Recovery, ESP, MSR and Data partitions.

Full UEFI boot made absolutely no difference. AFAIKT the BIOS time is the same between Legacy and UEFI boot. If there is a difference then something is hiding it and it may be the same reason there is no difference between the SSD speed (once it reaches 260MB/s) and boot time (See EDIT above), the only thing I can think of is the CPU.

FYI bench testing the drive in Win8 confirms the SSD speed of both drives and they are exactly as measured in the Reviews using the same Bench test application.

FYI the slower drive is and older 60GB OCZ Vertex 2 and the new Drive is a 128GB INTEL 520 Series.

My times have gone up quite abit since doing updates and adding peripherials, I'm having a hardtime with bluetooth not being found but I shall overcome. Button to desktop now 15-16secs, still server 2k3EE x32 SNO

Hi SNO, thanks for updating, still good times though. Mine is only slightly faster because of WIN8 Fast Start, but I hardly have time after pressing the power button to Sit down and slide the chair in. What I really like is I can launch Mailwasher or IE as soon as the Desktop is up and have almost instant NET access.