Boot Windows Vista In Four Seconds 326
arcticstoat writes "Asus' budget motherboard wing, ASRock, claims that it's found a way to load a clean boot of Windows from a full shut down in just four seconds, using its new Instant Boot technology. The technology takes advantage of the S3 and S4 features of ACPI, which normally enable the Sleep/Standby and Hibernation modes in Windows respectively. However, by calling them at different times in the boot-up and shutdown process, Instant Boot enables you to boot up to your Windows desktop in three to four seconds, even after a proper shut down. Two modes are available; Fast mode, which uses S3 and boots up in around four seconds, and Regular Mode, which uses S4 and apparently takes between 20 and 22 seconds to boot. The advantage of Instant Boot when compared with normal Sleep and Hibernation modes is that you get the advantage of a clean boot of Windows, without what ASRock calls 'accumulated garbage data,' and you also get the security of knowing that you won't lose any data if there's a power cut and you lose AC power. There's also a video of it in action at the link above."
Video (Score:5, Insightful)
Those guys in the video are having WAY too much fun with their jobs. "Why your computer boot so fast? I must get ASRock motherboard!"
Now I know why ASUS mobos tend to be so good. They encourage a fun workplace. ;-)
Re:get some fucking priorities (Score:3, Insightful)
And you're posting on Slashdot. What have you done to help save the economy?
Seriously.
My guess as to how it's done... (Score:5, Insightful)
They never show the shutdown process - my guess is that when you shutdown, it actually reboots, then right after Windows boots it puts it to sleep or hibernate (S3/S4). When you turn it back on, it wakes it and looks like you "just" booted up.
Not really a bad idea I suppose - moves the boot time from boot to shutdown, when you are less likely to care.
Of course you can get the same effect yourself by rebooting then just putting your machine to sleep when you want to shutdown. Someone could probably even write a simple software solution for this rather than requiring a whole new motherboard.
Then what happens... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Cool. (Score:3, Insightful)
It shouldn't be hard, as long as you have any kernel/motherboard combination where suspend or hibernate work reliably. Just create a shutdown level that actually does a reboot, then modify the startup scripts to immediately do a suspend or hibernate as soon as the machine is booted if that shutdown level was used. The effective shutdown time will be longer (because it's actually a reboot), but the effective "boot" time will be very quick.
While probably do-able, this actually seems like overkill. Why not just use normal suspend/resume?
Re:The Real Question: (Score:3, Insightful)
The motherboard is not required. Just have your OS automatically hibernate (or for the 3 second boot, automatically suspend) on each clean boot. Then to "shutdown" your computer, just reboot it. Your OS will shut down, and then start again, and enter sleep or hibernation just after it finishes it's restart. So when you approach your computer again, and push the power button, the computer "boots" with very high speed.
Re:get some fucking priorities (Score:5, Insightful)
this is Slashdot....news for nerds, stuff that matters.
Emphasis on "news for nerds"....it's not news for "stocktraders" or "economists" or even "lawyers".
Re:Video (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cheating... (Score:4, Insightful)
This is still cheating - it's first of all not actually booting but suspending/resuming (albeit smartly).
Most importantly the system is not actually shut down, so it still draws power to refresh the memory. This will likely suck on high-performance laptops where the large amounts of ram with high voltages will suck the battery dry in a substantially short time.
And worse, this technology will take a _long_ time to shutdown. It's sacrificing a lot. We can (really) boot+shutdown a linux box in +- 10 seconds. Would you want a 3 second boot if your shutdown time becomes one minute?
For people who are on the go a lot and tend to open/close their laptops a lot, this may actually reduce their effective work time a lot.
1) It only draws current in "Fast Mode." The "Regular Mode" still allows for 22 second booting with no power draw.
2) Most people won't mind the slow shut down, even in a scenario where the computer is being turned on and off frequently. Why? You shut down because you want to do something else, so the computer can painlessly finish the process in the background where you don't need to notice it. Yes, it will hurt battery life by extending the powered up state for a little longer than your actual usage time, but it then shaves most or all of that off of boot time, which is subjectively more critical.
3) How do you boot a Linux box in negative 10 seconds? "+- 10" looks like a statement of error bounds to me. I think you meant "~10."
Re:ASRock is not ASUS (Score:2, Insightful)
Thanks for that. It's important to have a citation when making claim about reliability -- it's one of those things that you never find in the specs, and if you do it's likely based on a formula or model and not from rigorous testing.
Re:Cheating... (Score:3, Insightful)
2) Most people won't mind the slow shut down, even in a scenario where the computer is being turned on and off frequently. Why? You shut down because you want to do something else, so the computer can painlessly finish the process in the background where you don't need to notice it. Yes, it will hurt battery life by extending the powered up state for a little longer than your actual usage time, but it then shaves most or all of that off of boot time, which is subjectively more critical.
Actually this matters to me more than boot time. If I've got to finish with the laptop I want it to shut down and be off as fast as possible.. because I need to *be* somewhere, and it's not safe to put a laptop in a bag whilst it's still shutting down (several collegues have nuked their hard disks trying that one).
Re:Heh... It's using the Hibernate functionality.. (Score:3, Insightful)
I think this is an excellent time for a car analogy. In the coldest of winter, I sit in my tiny subcompact sedan for 10 minutes waiting for it to reach a normal operating temperature. Would it be so bad if they found a way to make the car warm up in 4 seconds, with the side effect being it takes an extra 15 minutes go cold again after I turn it off?
At the risk of sounding self-centered, I think a lot of computer users are like me. They approach their computer and want it to start working as quickly as possible. When they're done with it, it doesnt matter how long it takes to shut down because they're not waiting on it. Concerning your laptop, I think the problem is more with you having it set up to suspend when you close the lid, rather than a slow power down time. Maybe you should set it up so it suspends with a key combination rather than a screen closing event?
Re:Linux vs. Windows Speed boots (Score:4, Insightful)
If they've found a way to boot Windows in 4 seconds, nobody other than haters is going to care how it was done. Calling the method an abuse of the hibernation system is as ridiculous as calling Jailbreaking an abuse of an iPod. It's your hardware.
I think you're missing the point. Since this is loading a hibernated image of a freshly booted system, this means that updates or changes in startup will be lost unless you remake the image. Since many Windows Updates require a reboot to take effect, this could result in remotely exploitable services running on your system.