Why Do Computers Take So Long to Boot Up?

An anonymous reader writes "Computers take too long to boot up, and it doesn't make sense to me. Mine takes around 30 seconds; it is double or triple that for some of my friends' computers that I have used. Why can't a computer turn on and off in an instant just like a TV? 99% of boots, my computer is doing the exact same thing. Then I get to Windows XP with maybe 50 to 75 megs of stuff in memory. My computer should be smart enough to just load that junk into memory and go with it. You could put this data right at the very start of the hard drive. Whenever you do something with the computer that actually changes what happens during boot, it could go through the real booting process and save the results. Doing this would also give you instant restarts. You just hit your restart button, the computer reloads the memory image, and you can be working again. Or am I wrong? Why haven't companies made it a priority to have 'instant on' desktops and laptops?"

Comments

fast booting TVs ?

[HughsOnFirst]

"Why can't a computer turn on and off in an instant just like a TV?"

My new HDTV takes about a minute to boot. Something about an ATI bios

Gotta mention the obligatory Steve Jobs story here

[sbaker]

(I hope I have this story right...this is from memory)

The story goes that the engineer working on the boot sequence for the original Mac was working late one night when Steve Jobs wanders past and asks how long the thing takes - the engineer is pretty happy that he's gotten it down to around 30 seconds (or however long it was) and that's probably good enough. Jobs then comments that they'll probably sell at least a million of these things - and each one will probably be booted a couple of times a day - and the machines will last maybe five years - so if he can save just one second more from the bootup time - that's equivelent to 113 years from the lives of Mac owners. So if you can save just one more second - that's like saving someone's life.

Talk about pressure!

But it's a serious point. The amount of human lifetimes that are wasted waiting for PC's to reboot is pretty horrifying - and there's a lot more than a million of them. Someone should take this seriously.

Re:hum

[SCPRedMage]

even with several open programs.

The point of hibernation is that it doesn't matter how many programs are running. It'll always write the same size file when hibernating, so it'll always read the same size of file coming back up. The number of applications running is largely inconsequential.

Of course, it should be noted that there IS a way to have Windows leave the hibernation file alone unless you tell it to hibernate again; that is, a hibernate once, resume many kind of situation. It's a trick often used when building a car PC. You get the system to the point where you'd want the system to start from, then tell it to hibernate. From then on, it'll resume from that spot. If you can get your system to work properly with hibernation, it's just about as fast as you'll ever get it to boot.

Come on. Look square at the issue.

[fyngyrz]

The problem is old-school linear thinking we've inherited.

There is no technical reason that a computer could not wake up, verify the keyboard, memory, hd, mouse and display are the same (in a few microseconds, probably) and be up and responding very well to the user, while (new concept, brace yourselves) the computer carefully brings up other hardware subsystems and makes them available as they become functional. You could be in a word processor, graphics editor, all manner of things that don't require more hardware until you do something like print or attempt to access the network; if those subsystems are not ready when you try to use them, the design would allow for [establishing hardware, wait or cancel] and there you have it.

There is no problem whatsoever with plug and play concepts coexisting with fast usability other than current design shortcomings end users have been forced to live with. The computer is running as soon as the HD is spinning, memory sized, and the video card is on and the KB and mouse work. Just because current operating systems don't let you begin working at that time isn't a reflection on plug and play as a concept, it's a reflection of linear thinking that descends from old single tasking systems like early DOS.

The idea that a 2...3 GHz 32 or 64 bit CPU cannot bring itself to decent usability in under a second is one that is silly right on the face of it except in that common systems are using old school thinking and layering more and more crap on top of that thinking. There is not a thing in the world that says drivers can't be loaded on demand, or after usability from boot, or separately. Nothing.