Boot Windows Vista In Four Seconds

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."

Comments

Video

[AKAImBatman]

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. ;-)

My guess as to how it's done...

[crt]

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.