PC Makers Try To Pinch Seconds From Their Boot Times

Some computers are never turned off, or at least rarely see any state less active than "standby," but others (for power savings or other reasons) need rebooting — daily, or even more often. The New York Times is running a short article which says that it's not just a few makers like Asus who are trying to take away some of the pain of waiting for computers, especially laptops, to boot up. While it's always been a minor annoyance to wait while a computer slowly grinds itself to readiness, "the agitation seems more intense than in the pre-Internet days," and manufacturers are actively trying to cut that wait down to a more bearable length. How bearable? A "very good system is one that boots in under 15 seconds," according to a Microsoft blog cited, and an HP source names an 18-month goal of 20-30 seconds.

Comments

286 + DOS

[Circlotron]

My 10 MHz '286 running DOS 3.3 used to go from power to prompt in 11 seconds. Humans wake up. Old radios warm up. Computers boot up.

Fantastic quote to go with this

[sunami]

"there is something deeply wrong when text editing on a 3.6 ghz processor is anything but instantaneous." --John Carmack

Re:under 15 seconds?

[sdbillin]

It would - it has no pesky drivers or apps to slow it down.

Re:Forget computers, how about everyday electronic

[spyderman4g63]

I remember blowing into the Nintendo cartridges and screwing around with them for a good 15 minutes before they would work.

Re:Forget computers, how about everyday electronic

[that IT girl]

Sounds kind of like a husband.

I hate to say it

[Anonymous Coward]

A very good PC is one that boots in less than 15 seconds"

"A very good PC is one that boots into Linux, therefore being superior in every way"

There, fixed that for you

Re:Gresham's Law

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

What percentage of that "billion people" use "hundreds of input and output periperals"? Ten? More than two?

100. PCs are ridiculously upgradable. The OS needs to not shit its pants when a component is changed. Then the need for time-outs and other ways of checking shit created by other vendors comes along. It's really technical, it might be a bit much for a CEO-like mind such as yours to handle.

And then the Entity's CEO buys himself another ivory backscratcher to celebrate the fact that he's conned yet another sucker into thinking that because he refuses to do something that it can't be done.

Yep. It's a big conspiracy to keep boot-times high. I mean, it's not like there's a market for laptops and accompanying OS's that can boot in a second. Nope, it's the oil companies trying to keep people's computers on for longer, sell more energy. If only Michael Moore would come out and expose this dastardly plot.